Special prosecutor Lloyd Pearson has been murdered and there is strong evidence that gambler Moroni committed the crime, but he has an air-tight alibi, spending the evening with Brad McKay, star reporter of the Chronicle. Norris, the publisher, send Brad and his son, Guy Norris, to cover the story. Brad learns that Moroni did commit the murder, but has no way to prove it. Moroni tells Brad that the murdered prosecutor was getting a payoff, and was killed by his assistant Hugh Walker following a quarrel. John Angus, proprietor of the Hi Lo Club, tells Moroni that Brad suspects him. Phyllis Walker tells Brad that her father is in danger from Moroni. Hugh Walker has given her a key to the public locker where some money is hidden. That night, Brad finds Moroni dead. He realizes there is a higher-up that had Moroni kill Pearson, and then has had Moroni killed. He learns that Walker has been kidnapped, but secures the money from the locker and hides it in his apartment. He meets Alma Dorne at the night club, and, while attracted to her, he suspects she is an accomplice of the gang. He surprises her while she is searching his apartment for the money, and agrees to help him. Norris summons Brad to his home for Brad to show him what evidence he has collected so far. Norris, at the point of a gun, tells Brad he has collected too much. Brad gets the upper hand by telling Norris that his son Guy is walking into a death trap. Norris rushes to save his son from the trap he himself had set for Brad. The city's District Attorney is murdered, and a newspaper reporter investigates. He starts finding out that everything wasn't quite as cut and dried as it appeared to be. Lee Tracy fans rejoice! "The Payoff" (1944) is absolutely essential must viewing for Lee Tracy's legion of fans, so I'm giving it a "Recommended" tag even though it's only available on a very good VintageFilmBuff DVD which you'll need to track down. Admittedly, two of the support players, namely the diminutive but mysterious Tina Thayer (even IMDb can tell us very little about her) and the wonderful Evelyn Brent do get a bit of a look-in, but it's plainly a Lee Tracy vehicle specifically designed for Lee Tracy fans – and for Lee Tracy fans only. Lee has twice as many lines as all the rest of the cast put together and two hundred times more close-ups than Tom Brown. (If memory serves me correctly, Tom has one). True, the lines are third-rate compared to those hatched up for Tracy in "Blessed Event" (1932), but self-indulgent Lee makes the most of them anyway. Arthur Dreifuss is credited as the director here, but I can't for the life of me figure out what Arthur did. Tracy needed no coaching and he simply talks right into the camera. Maybe Dreifuss shot the 10% of the movie in which Tracy doesn't appear? If so, he didn't do a very good job. When the film begins, the reporter Brad McKay (Lee Tracy) is doing what most reporters seem to do in films when they're not on assignment– he's playing poker with the boys. While this is taking place, across town someone is ventilating the District Attorney's head with a .38 slug…so at least we know that the guys playing poker weren't responsible. But who is? And, like most B-crime films, it's inevitably that the fast-talking reporter knows infinitely more than the stupid cops…so it will be up to him to solve the case.<br/><br/>This film is an interesting comedown for Tracy. Back in the 30s, he made films for several big studios, including Columbia and MGM. However, after a series of public embarrassments, Tracy's film work consisted of working for the crappiest studios…and it didn't get any crappier than PRC…who made this film. However, for a PRC film it's much better than usual…thanks mostly to Tracy as well as a halfway decent script…very unusual for PRC! Not a brilliant film but worth seeing and among the best PRC films I've seen. In other words, it surprisingly did not suck!
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