“Stripper Shot on Main Street”, shouts the newspaper headlines in this underrated oddball from the great Sam Fuller. That’s just the start of a detective tale that takes nothing but left turns through sleazy Los Angeles. This is a film where the love story that you THINK is going to happen doesn’t. It’s a film that opens in a strip club and then detours into the world of bohemian artists before it settles into a study of the lives of Japanese-Americans in Southern California in the 1950s (and all in about eighty minutes). It’s a film that sometimes feels like it might forget its murder mystery in favor of the more juicy and complex matter of race relations at the time. What you’ve got here are two homicide detectives whose friendship goes back to the Korean War. Strong-jawed Glenn Corbett is the white guy; James Shigeta is the Japanese guy, though thorougly Americanized. This is the first film for both actors and Fuller takes advantage of not having a star to protect by letting both of these characters have their low moments with no big redemption expected. They’re two of the most human police detectives in movies at the time. They’re stoic, but sometimes wrong. They’re likable, but they frustrate us (much like how they frustrate each other). They’re great friends until a woman gets between them. In another unusual detail, that woman is a sweet and sensible type, far from a femme fatale. Count the unconventional moments here. It’s a long list. That’s the Sam Fuller way. He’s the perfect romantic example of a Hollywood filmmaker who made a B-movie budget count by using it to get away with stories that might have been a tough sell higher up the totem pole. Douglas Sirk couched his subversive critiques of America in stately Technicolor melodrama; Fuller does the same, but inside black-and-white crime flicks. No wonder why he often sympathizes with rogues.