John Bromfield in "Hot Cars" (1956) - feat. Joi Lansing & Dabbs Greer

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After used car salesman Nick Dunn (John Bromfield) fails to make a sale to prospective buyers Karen Winter (Joi Lansing) and Arthur Markel (Ralph Clanton), his boss, George Hayman (Robert Osterloh), fires him.
Later, Markel offers Nick a more lucrative job at his car lot, which Nick eagerly accepts. Soon after, however, Nick becomes suspicious and quits after learning that Markel undercuts all his competition, offers loans without down payments and receives secret deliveries of cars during evening hours. Nick is then forced to ask for his job back when his young son is hospitalized with a serious medical condition.
Promoted to manager, Nick learns Markel is running a racket in which the stolen cars' serial numbers are removed, the cars are reupholstered, repainted and sold. Soon after Det. Davenport (Dabbs Greer) of the State Police Auto Theft Detail expresses interest in purchasing a car from Markel's lot, Nick learns that Davenport has been killed.
Meanwhile, Nick's wife, Jane Dunn (Carol Shannon), accuses him of being part of a racket when she discovers large deposits to their checking account. Nick seeks solace with the single Karen, but the affair is short-lived. When Lieutenants Holmes (George Sawaya) and Jefferson (Charles Keane) investigate Davenport's death, Nick tries to establish an alibi with Karen, but she refuses to corroborate his story. Fearing that he will be implicated in the murder, Nick flees in search of Markel's associate, Smiley Ward (Mark Dana), whom he knows killed Davenport.
Upon finding Smiley, Nick orders him into his car at gunpoint. As Nick drives him toward some police cars, Smiley grabs the wheel and the car crashes into an amusement park parking lot. Nick chases Smiley into the park and onto a roller coaster, from which Smiley falls to his death. After the police discover the true facts of the case, Nick tells them the details of the "hot car" racket.
A 1956 American Black & White film-noir crime film directed by Don McDougall, produced by Howard W. Koch, screenplay by Don Martin and Richard H. Landau, based on H. Haile Chace's novel of the same name, cinematography by William Margulies, starring John Bromfield, Carol Shannon, Joi Lansing, Ralph Clanton, Mark Dana, Charles Keane, George Sawaya, Dabbs Greer, John Frederick, Kurt Katch, Joan Sinclair, Robert Osterloh, Maurice Marks, and Paula Hill. Released by United Artists.
The car being taken for a test drive at the beginning of the film is a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 190SL convertible.
Koch and Bel-Air excelled at these low-budget, lurid little 50s crime pictures. "Shield For Murder" (1954), "Big House USA" (1955), "Three Bad Sisters" (1956), "Untamed Youth" (1957), with Mamie Van Doren and Eddie Cochran), and so on.
John Bromfield made a few cool B-Movies. "The Black Dakotas" (1954) and "Revenge Of The Creature" (1955). He starred in the TV series "The Sheriff Of Cochise", also called "US Marshal". He retired in 1960 when the show was cancelled and became a commercial fisherman.
Director Don McDougall kept busy doing TV, from the 50s well into the 80s. From "The Roy Rogers Show" to "Bonanza" and from "M Squad" to "The Night Stalker". He also did the Star Trek episode “The Squire Of Gothos.” This is one of only a handful of features he directed. Here he avoided the studio-bound staginess of a lot of cheap movies from the period, mounting cameras on a rollercoaster. Margulies spent the bulk of his career at Universal, where he shot countless TV. "Gunpoint" (1966) with Audie Murphy and the "Ghost And Mr. Chicken" (1966).
This boasts an ultra-cool jazz score from Les Baxter. Baxter composed music for quite a few Bel-Air movies, and some Regalscope pictures, before hitting his stride at American International. At the same time, he was making great records like "Space Escapade" (1958). Leslie Thompson Baxter (1922 - 1996) was an American musician, composer and conductor. Starting as an arranger and composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening music, "exotica", and scored over 250 radio, TV and motion pictures numbers. Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory of Music before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. From 1943 on he played tenor and baritone saxophone for the Freddie Slack big band. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as "What Is This Thing Called Love?". Baxter then turned to arranging and conducting for Capitol Records in 1950, and conducted the orchestra in two early Nat King Cole hits, "Mona Lisa" and "Too Young". He also recorded Yma Sumac's first album: "Voice of the Xtabay", considered one of the first recordings of exotica. In 1953 he scored his first movie, the sailing travelogue Tanga Tika.
This is cooler than it is good, with appeal limited largely to fans of cheap noir. But if you fall into that group, enjoy!