There’s a film noir from the '50s, I think, that features detectives matching a lot (hundreds?) of photographs of women with a photograph of a skull. I have an idea that Ricardo Montalban was a detective. Was it Mystery Street (1950)? It’s on now, and I’ve seen it before, but I missed the beginning so I don’t know. The name does not ring a bell.
That does happen in Mystery Street.
Google Books: Film Noir
That is, indeed, it.
I just don’t remember Mystery Street as the title. (Maybe I missed it the first time I saw it.)
Mystery Street was on this afternoon( Weds. Feb.27) on TCM. WOW!