Find the Woman

Ohio’s footlights-obsessed ingénue Clancy Deane hurtles into Manhattan’s gaslit labyrinth, where greasepaint masks double as death warrants. Inside Maurice Beiner’s gilt-and-grime "agency," a sham casting office that peddles extortion instead of employment, she watches the puppeteer himself topple, cranium kissing mahogany, a momentary blackout that will tint every subsequent heartbeat. Slipping onto a rust-flaked fire escape, she collides with the velvet-draped Mrs. Carey, a woman hunting incriminating letters that burn hotter than stage limelight. When Beiner’s corpse—throat ventilated by steel—is discovered, suspicion ricochets from dressing rooms to judges’ chambers; fingerprints on the judge’s dented skull match the crimson-smeared prints on the murder blade. Through gin-soaked alleys, speakeasy fugues, and backstage trapdoors, the film pirouettes toward the revelation that Don Carey—souse, cuckold, human bruise—has authored his own exit as well as Beiner’s. Curtains fall on a double wedding of sorts: Clancy weds steadfast playwright Philip Vandevent while gavel-wielding Judge Walbrough claims Sophie Carey, both unions sealed over a fresh grave.