TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

clanciai It's unusual to see Dorothy Lamour in a serious role as a victim with a fatherless child, outcast at the mercy of deceivers and crooks. Dan Duryea is more abominable than ever, his name on the list is enough to prepare you for a grim session of hatred of his person, while the other characters are actually rather comical, especially Art Smith as detective Dawson. It's really the comic traits that save the film. Sterling Hayden is always good and here as an insurance agent, while the murder case is intriguing enough.A well off author keeps dreaming about killing his awful wife, his dreams are so disturbing that he goes to a psychiatrist, who advises him to take enough sleeping pills to be knocked off. In his dreams he beats her to death with a perfume bottle while she is taking off her multi fortune jewels, and while he is knocked off his wife is actually murdered in that very way and her jewels stolen. The only certain thing about the murder is that her husband didn't do it since he was knocked off.It's an interesting intrigue that keeps your interest growing until things get off hand towards the end, when Dan Duryea runs off the rails and makes a mess of his own perfect set-up. It's not a great noir or thriller, but it certainly is odd and original and worth seeing at least once, mainly for the police comedy. The music is very good.

MartinHafer Despite Dorothy Lamour receiving star billing in "Manhandled", clearly the star of this one is Dan Duryea...a guy who really excelled at playing sleazy and malevolent characters. However, Lamour was a bigger stat at the time and Duryea mostly played strong supporting characters...so she got this billing. But for Lamour, there isn't much for her to do but be a victim...and hope that she isn't going to prison in this film.When the story begins, a psychiatrist is having his secretary (Lamour) transcribe a very disturbed patient (Alan Napier) and his twisted fantasy of killing his wife. Well, pretty soon after this, the wife is murdered...and the rest of the film about the cops finding out the culprit. Karl Benson (Duryea) seems to be doing his best to frame her for the murder....but why?? And can the real story come out by the thrilling finale?I loved a lot about this film but mostly what I loved was how gritty and nasty the film was...a great example of a noir classic. Duryea is at his best...so good you barely notice Sterling Hayden (a great noir actor)! See Duryea in the alleyway scene...where he plows a guy into a brick wall with his car! And, see Duryea slug Lamour's character...twice!! All in all, a nifty film...one that isn't particularly famous in the genre...but should be.

dougdoepke The shot of an ecstatic Duryea running down a terrified Vermilyea in the narrow, darkened alley way is a great slice of noir. Too bad the tension comes so late because, despite the promising title and noir icon Duryea, the narrative holds together about as well as an O J Simpson alibi. Looks like three different scriptwriters came up with three different results, so you may need a chart to track all the threads meandering through the plot. What the screenplay lacks is focus. There really is no central character holding developments together. Hayden's the headliner, yet his role as insurance investigator remains oddly inessential. Instead, lowly Art Smith gets the law-and-order screen time and in fact most of the movie time. Now, I like actor Smith as much as the next guy, especially in sly roles (Ride the Pink Horse {1947}); still, his comic relief here is not only misplaced, but too often sounds like it's being done by the numbers. (And whoever is it that thought a cop car without brakes is funny!)On a more positive note, Alan Napier gets a delicious turn as the snooty novelist husband, but unfortunately soon drops out of sight, and I'm really sorry Irene Hervey's sexy wife bites the dust early on. She's a lively and interesting presence, making her spats with Napier a movie high point. And that's another source of trouble. Everyone disappears from the narrative for significant periods, such that a nudge is sometimes needed to remember who they are, even the largely wasted Lamour. All this might be okay if the plot or direction generated some suspense, but they don't, at least in my little book. In fact, if it weren't for the great Duryea doing another of his patented oily operator roles, the movie would be much more forgettable than it already is. From the title, I certainly expected better.

Karen (Gypsy1962) Overall, I was fairly disappointed in Manhandled. The best part about it was Dan Duryea, who played his usual oily self and is always a pleasure to watch. The plot of the film was satisfactory as well, involving a rich woman's coveted jewels, her murder, and a melange of would-be killers. But Dorothy Lamour is miscast as the leading lady and adds little to the production, and a running gag between a police detective and his partner is not only tiresome but also out of place. The film did offer several notable elements of film noir, however, including the opening sequence, in which a man dreams that he bludgeons his wife to death with a perfume bottle, and a later scene in which a duplicitous doctor is run over -- repeatedly -- by a car. Still, I'd probably place this one way down on my list of film noir must-sees.