The Argyle Secrets (1948) review

Investigative journalist Allen Pierce (George Anderson), in the hospital after having been poisoned, tells Herald reporter Harry Mitchell (William Gargan) about the "Argyle Album" he's compiling - a list of American collaborators and profiteers who collaborated with Nazi Germany - but passes away before elaborating further ... then Harry is accused of murder and has to contend with several nefarious types (including Marjorie Lord and John Banner) who will do anything for the dossier.  As a B-noir made with a miniscule budget, it doesn't waste a whole lot of your time (it runs a little over an hour), but it's also convoluted (there are so many side characters!) and crunched up, as if it's in a race with itself to finish up.  Perhaps even more interesting than the movie itself is the career of writer-director Endfield, who had to leave Hollywood for the United Kingdom because of the HUAC debacle: do you think, by chance, he was so skeptical of the U.S. government he believed some people did actually work with individuals from the Third Reich?  Maybe not, but there was this program called Operation Paperclip....