A pioneer noir

Clay Pigeon (1946)
A patient recovers from a coma only to discover that he is to be court marshalled. He slips from the Naval Hospital. A bulletin goes out to enforcement units in search of a certain Jim Fletcher, a first class seaman for treason.
Jim (Bill Williams) has amnesia but still can remember his 2 best friends in the Navy- Mark Gregory and Ted Niles.
Jim goes over to Mark Gregory's house only to discover in the newspaper that he had tortured and killed Gregory. It is all news to him as his memory has been blanked out. Mark's wife Martha (Barbara Hale of Perry Mason fame) initially entertains him only to quietly try to contact the police in the sly. Jim intercepts,kidnaps her and drives to LA to meet Ted Niles a fellow Navy man to clear his name.
Enroute to LA, a car tries to knock him off the road.
After fainting whilst driving and resting in the beach caravan for a week, Martha nurses James back to health.
They continue their journey.
In a Chinatown restaurant, he bumps on to a guy familiar to him by the name of Tokiyama a.k.a. The Weasel. In the war, Mark, Ted and Jim were stealing food from the enemy's kitchen when they were held as prisoners in WW2 and was squealed out to the enemies by one of them. Jim thinks that it was Gregory and Jim had allegedly beaten him to death (according to the papers).

Damage control - So as not to hurt the sentiments
of  Japanese American as the villain is Japanese and
the World War had just ended 4 years previously, Jim,
who is running away from the crook, is saved by an
Japanese American widow whose husband died whilst
serving in the 442nd Infantry Regiment. This regiment
has a reputation of having many decorated Japanese
American war heroes whose motto was 'Go for Broke'.

Then starts the cat and mouse chase around Chinatown which finally leads James on a train with Ted and Tokiyama. It turned out that Ted was the double crosser all the while. Both of them were out to finish James once and for all after only managing to keep him in coma for 2 years before. In the meantime, Martha who did her own private eye work discovers the whole truth and inadvertently bumps into the the Naval Intelligence. The police intercepts the train, the crooks are apprehended and Jim's name is cleared. Apparently, after Pearl Harbour, the Japanese had a large of cash set aside to be used to attack the Eastern coast of USA. As it did not materialize, Tokiyama managed to smuggle it to the US and went into business with Ted. With their capture the US Treasury got some stash and James got all his 2 years back pay.
James and Martha decide to tie the knot.
A mediocre Saturday afternoon cheap flick matinee with not much imagination. The characters are plain, lack depth and unimaginative. A film one can do without watching. The only reason I gave it a go is because of wanting to watch Barbara Hale on the silver screen but she did not shine either. Even though Bill Williams and Barbara Hale were married for 3 years before the film and share good chemistry, somehow I could not help it but feel that the chemistry between Hale and Raymond Burr was stronger.
This film noir was the series of B-grade noirs produced by RKO studios after it went into the red and was taken over by Howard Hughes.

clay pigeon (noun)

1. Trapshooting, Skeet . A disk of baked clay or other material hurled into the air from a trap as a target.
2. (Slang). A person in a situation likely to be taken advantage of by others.