Fred Zinnemann directed some seventeen short films for MGM between 1937 and 1942; when he emerged to direct The Kid Glove Killer, the New York Times noted, "It might be a good idea to send some directors of super-colossal specials back to the shorts department to learn a lesson in conciseness...Out of a routine story of the battle between a city reform administration and a criminal syndicate, (Zinnemann) has made a film that is direct, compact and tight as a drum...(Its) climaxes are seen through the microscope of a police laboratory. There, with a strand of rope, a bit of clipped wire or the dust vacuumed from a suspect's head, a laboratory worker slowly sifts the evidence that leads to the killer. Out of the routine tests of chemicals and spectographs, Mr. Zinnemann has created a good deal of taut suspense." Van Heflin is the white-jacketed criminologist seeking a test-tube solution to the kid-glove mystery.