D. L. Trees

Created by David J. Sherman

After years of faithful service to Warner Bros., supporting-player Jerome Cowan was finally rewarded with two starring vehicles, the first of which was 1943's Find the Blackmailer. Cowan played private eyes D.L. TREES, hired by mayoral hopeful John M. Rhodes (Gene Lockhart) as a sort of troubleshooter/P.R. man, to prevent any sort of adverse publicity.

Maybe it should have been titled Find the Blackbird, because it turns out that there's this talking crow that's been flitting around town, insisting that Rhodes will commit a murder. (Did I mention the two films were strictly B? Evidently, Cowan may have been rewarded, but it wasn't that great a reward.)

But I digress...

When the murder inevitably occurs, Rhodes is of course suspected, and Trees is off on a hectic pursuit of the pesky pigeon, and maybe, just maybe, the actual murderer.

The second film that Cowan starred in was Crime By Night, based on the Humphrey Campbell novel Forty Whacks by Geoffrey Homes.

FILMS

• FIND THE BLACKMAILER
  (1943, Warner Bros.)
  55 minutes, black & white
  Based on the short story "Blackmail with Feathers" by G.T. Flemings-Robert
  Screenplay by Robert E. Kent
  Directed by David Ross Lederman
  Starring Jerome Cowan as D.L. TREES
  Also starring Faye Emerson, Gene Lockhart, John Harmon, Bradley Page, Lou Lubin

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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"...and I'll tell you right out that I'm a man who likes talking to a man that likes to talk."