Please Murder Me (1956)

An attorney (Raymond Burr) is in love with the wife (Angela Lansbury) of his best friend (Dick Foran). When she kills her husband in self defense, he defends her and gets her off. Then to his horror, he discovers that she killed her husband in cold blood to get his money. But the law says she can't be tried for the same crime twice, so he plots his own revenge. Directed by Peter Godfrey (CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT), this B programmer allows Burr and Lansbury to take center stage and play leading roles rather than the supporting roles (and usually as heavies) they normally played. The following year Burr would go on to TV fame playing another lawyer Perry Mason and Lansbury is quite effective as the manipulative femme fatale. As to the film itself, it's a serviceable potboiler made watchable by its two leads but don't expect any surprises as it marches to its predictable conclusion. With John Dehner, Denver Pyle, Madge Blake and as Lansbury's artist lover, Lamont Johnson who would go on to be a prolific director in film (LIPSTICK) and TV (That Certain Summer).