The typical MGM noir is a B film on an A budget, rich in all the dark thematic qualities of true noir melodramas, at the same time benefitting from superior casting and production values. Here, Ricardo Montalban stars as a police detective investigating the murder of a "lady of the night" known to socialize with members of the Cape Cod/Harvard blueblood set. A superb supporting cast includes Elsa Lanchester in the role of a gin-swigging, blackmailing landlady. Mystery Street was filmed partly in and around Boston to give the heightened suspense a flavor of semi-documentary authenticity (read: lurid crime details). "Alton was thoroughly familiar with a photographic style that could enhance the detailed scientific investigation and become the bizarre background for a crime as illustrated by the reconstruction of an adult skeleton, dredging a swamp for a car, and sifting beach sand to discover and reconstruct the skeleton of a fetus." (Silver and Ward, Film Noir)