An insurance man wishing for a more exciting life becomes wrapped up in the affairs of an imprisoned embezzler, his model girlfriend, and a violent private investigator.
Acting
Dick Powell's quiet desperation; Raymond Burr's terrifying stillness.
Direction
De Toth shoots LA as sunlit purgatory, not shadowy hell.
Writing
Every 'innocent' choice becomes another locked door.
Director
André de Toth
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Rare noir that indicts the 'average' American husband rather than city corruption; postwar anxiety weaponized.
De Toth was legally blind in one eye—yet his spatial compositions are surgically precise, especially the beach confrontation.
US
