SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Phillim Just go with it -- suspend all disbelief and enjoy! Her sister may have just been murdered, but lovely Betty Grable giggles as she makes with a hacksaw on big lug Victor Mature's handcuffs! Laird Cregar menaces as a giant, obsessed detective who purrs philsophically! All that and Elisha Cook Jr.! Fox staff composer Cyril J. Mockridge provides the score -- giddy alternating repetition of 'Over the Rainbow' and Gershwin pastiche ('Rhapsody in Blue'?), as love theme and underworld suspense motif, respectively. Sounds as slapped-together-in-a-hurry as the film looks -- in a good way! The crazy pace and goofy energy are this film's admirable strengths.Watch for the not-even-close/no-time-to-get-it-right rear projection as Cregar and Mature take an uncomfortable drive uptown in a convertible. Otherwise the design and lighting/photography are swell.Ace perennial English butler Allan Mowbray gets to expand his comic and dramatic range as a flamboyant aging stage actor/superb physical coward. Charles 'oh yeah, that guy' Lane appears as his typical taciturn, semi-bald, bespectacled self in the role of the cooperative florist -- not quite the usual 'angry authority' bit he played hundreds of times on film and TV into the 1990s. (Lane, a founding member of SAG, passed in 2007 at age 102 -- one of the last survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.)This is a good film to study regarding the phenomenon of 'star quality' -- never was Victor Mature's self-admitted aggressive lack of interest in Acting more apparent, or more perfectly utilised!

writers_reign This movie provides a fascinating insight into the way movies 'borrow' from one another and how subtly they avoid charges of both incest and plagiarism. This one kicks off with a title that is pure Cornell Woolllrich/William Irish and negates it immediately by bearing no trace of anyone doing any such thing - although it does tip its had by having a major character named Cornell. The main coincidence is having the detective (Laird Cregar) leading the hunt for the murdered of Vicki Lynn (Carol Landis) being in love with her and ultimately revealed to have an apartment full of photos and mementos of her. Three years later detective Dana Andrews fell in love with a dead girl, Laura, whilst assigned to find her killer but having checked the similarities let's look at the differences. Andrews had never heard of Laura (Gene Tierney) until he was assigned to the case whereas Cornell not only knew Vicki in life but turned out to be the killer plus we met Vicki some time before she was killed whereas Laura is dead (so we think) for about the first five or six reels before turning up alive. On the other hand both films were produced by Fox who, for good measure, remade IWUS in the fifties as Vicki. All that to one side this is a stylish noir with Victor Mature equalling the performances he gave in Cry Of The City and Kiss of Death and Betty Grable showing she could handle a straight acting role (wisely they cut the scene where she sings Bobby Troup's 'Daddy' but the good news is it's available as an 'extra' on the DVD.

jarrodmcdonald-1 My feelings about this film changed when I watched it last night on TCM during Betty Grable's Summer Under the Stars tribute. It is not as good as I remembered. It suffers from quite a few plot contrivances, and the main stars look a little uncomfortable in their roles (except for Laird Cregar and Carole Landis), and for the most part it sort of registers like a glorified B crime film. I think Grable was right when she told studio boss Darryl Zanuck that she was not cut out for straight dramatic parts and stuck to musicals henceforth. In a musical you can get by with mediocre acting if your dancing and singing is spectacular. But in a film of this nature, with nothing else to fall back on, you have to be very convincing-- and in some spots she is a bit too self-conscious and not at all convincing. Costar Victor Mature does not exactly have a handle on his character either (but as his career at Fox continued, he would become a dependable dramatic lead). VICKI, the remake that hit screens twelve years with Jeanne Crain and Jean Peters, is better in my opinion.

krocheav It was the dynamic title that drove me to this oddity. Then there was also the cast, Betty Grable in a noir drama? She's very pleasing in her early strait role (was that magnificent blond hair truly real?) Victor Mature demonstrates his increasingly nervous discomfort throughout the progress of this story via his iconic facial expressions, belying his characters over-confident exterior. The cause of this discomfort comes in the form of a creepy Laid Cregar, a strange detective who is determined to nail Mature for a serious crime. An interesting scene has him wake to the sense of an ominous presence in his apartment that would have had me screaming too - I can't too readily recall another actor that could signal fear, with just one instant facial expression.Carole Landis, who tragically took her own life at only 29, following a scandalous affair with married philanderer Rex Harrison, is OK in the part of Grable's sister. With so many others in the support cast also being noteworthy, this just had to be seen.The Director; Bruce Humberstone, whom I had associated more with comedies, musicals, and outdoor actioners (Tazan and westerns) seems to be in his element with this fast moving crime story by prolific writer; Steve Fisher ("Lady in the Lake" '46) Good one liners come rapidly and often.It gets off to a cracking opening with striking sets by multi award winning Thomas Little; "Grapes of Wrath" '40 ~ "Razors Edge" '46 ~ Viva Zapata" '52. With Art Direction by two up and coming directors, Richard Day, and Nathan Juran. Another veteran, Director of Photography; Edward Cronjager, "Roberta" '35 ~ "House by the River" '50 ~ "Relentless" '48 ~ "Beneath the 12 mile Reef" '53, all combine to assure this film a stylish look and feel.It may not always work as well as you might like, but it keeps you watching and guessing to the end. The biggest draw back for me was the musical direction by English born Cyril J. Mockridge. He must have been given only a few days to prepare a score and I don't think he wrote a note of original music. Instead, he uses music tracks from the library of popular standards. The best of these is Alfred Newman's "Street Scene" put to good use under the opening credits. Another is Harold Arlen's immortal "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Both these melodies keep popping up at the most unnecessary moments during the story, so much so, that by the time the end title arrives you may well wake up screaming too...Not great, but still good entertainment.