First, I must point out that the role Wendell Corey played was exceptional. Usually, Corey was relegated to supporting roles but here he is what helps carry this very limp film. Without him and the character he played, the film would have been a lot worse--hardly meriting a 2 or 3.

So why did I hate the rest of the film so much? Well, one of my pet peeves is when characters act "too stupid to live". You can't base major plot points on the assumption that your major characters are completely stupid (unless having a brain injury is part of the plot, of course). But this is exactly what happens in this film. Wendell Corey is a crazed man who has murdered three innocent people and they know his next target is Joseph Cotten's wife. So what do they do? Yep, they provide really inadequate police protection and a plan that makes no sense at all (no marksman and guys with shotguns that are so far away they probably WON'T stop this madman). And if this isn't bad enough, the marked woman inexplicably runs away from her hiding place and walks right into the WORST possible place she could be! Is anyone THAT stupid?!?! Arrrggghhhh---I hate when movies have such dumb characters. In fact, I found myself rooting for Corey since I felt the idiots deserved to die for their behaviors! In addition to these clichéd characters, there was also a bit player who fainted. Sure, seeing your husband shot MIGHT cause someone to faint, however in real life this is a rare occurrence--people rarely faint unless there is a medical reason. So, combining this with the above character problems is a real nightmare for people who are looking for realism--something Film Noir movies MUST have.

All these serious problems are even more infuriating since Wendell Corey's character is amazingly well-written and conceived. It was his chance to shine as an actor--too bad the rest of the movie was so limp that Corey and the basic plot idea are sunk. This is one film that could really use a remake--but this time without brainless characters.

Wendell Corey is perfectly cast as the personality absent loan shark clerk who botches a robbery that ends up with police officer Joseph Cotten accidentally killing his wife. On his way to prison, Corey looks Cotten's wife (Rhonda Fleming) right in the eye and promises he will venge his own wife's death. Three years go by and Corey in prison is made a trustee, thus engineering his escape. The bodies pile up as Cotten learns that Corey has vowed to kill Fleming (an eye for an eye) and tries to prevent his frustrated spouse from becoming Corey's next victim.

Going down the territory of some earlier crime dramas and film noirs (there is a difference),this bottom of the bill feature is a gritty and non-pretentious view of the desperate hours after Corey's goals are revealed. There doesn't seem to be any way out but a predictable conclusion, but that really doesn't matter. As in the similar "B" sleeper "The Night Holds Terror", this film takes some interesting twists and turns, provides some real chills as potential victims of Corey's insanity show genuine fear. Having been beyond miscast as the romantic lead in such films as "The File on Thelma Jordan", "The Furies" and "Harriet Craig", the usually bland Corey shows more dimension here as a psychopathic nut job than in those dramatic potboilers which paired him opposite Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford. A svelte Alan Hale Jr. ("Gilligan's Island") and a young John Beradino ("General Hospital's" long-time patriarch, Dr. Steve Hardy) are instantly recognizable as Cotten's co-workers.

This is a must for lovers of gritty crime drama and rises above what could easily have been an hour long episode of a 50's TV cop show.

Although Andrew Sarris italicized it in the list of Boetticher's films in The American Cinema (meaning he recognized it as one of the more notable films on the list),I've never run across any critical comment on this film. Nevertheless, it's a real discovery-- imagine Cape Fear with Wally Cox in the Mitchum role and you get some idea. Corey (who usually played stiff bureaucrats and cops himself) gets the role of his life as a mild-mannered clerk turned crook who becomes unhinged and escapes with the plan to kill the cop who sent him up. What's creepy about him is that, like Norman Bates, he never even raises his voice-- and like Norman Bates, eventually he winds up in a dress (oh, it seems logical enough as a disguise, but it introduces an unmistakable air of sexual confusion and perversity into the violent climax that catapults the film into Fullerian ranks of psychosexual luridness). And if you want to know what Brian dePalma's been trying to do all these years with movies like Blow Out and Snake Eyes, just watch how effortlessly Boetticher plays out the climax over walkie-talkies (a sequence to rival Touch of Evil).