Lured (1998)

Best known for half a dozen ripe melodramas from the 1950s, director Douglas Sirk was also adept, as this new-to-video gem confirms, at elegant thrillers, such as Lured. Lucille Ball (an absolute delight) plays a spirited taxi dancer who's enlisted by Scotland Yard to help track down a serial killer — by offering herself as bait. Among the suspects are Boris Karloff as a deranged clothing designer, George Sanders as a suave playboy, and Alan Mowbray as a creepy butler with a sideline in white slavery. What could have been merely a diverting whodunit becomes, in Sirk's hands, an atmospheric, sensuous pleasure. And while it may not match the operatic intensity of Written on the Wind or Imitation of Life, this chiller does share the same superb craftsmanship that makes those later films so riveting. B+