This film had me hooked because of the plot. The suspense was somewhat Hitchcockian. But the film really belonged to the haunting Brahms score and a very restrained Robert Mitchum (a role that reminds you so much of his fine role in Ryan's Daughter decades later) who only appears in the second half of the film.
This is not Robert Taylor's best effort, yet it's an effort that cannot be ignored. He is menacing in his role but the menace is accentuated by the dark photography of Karl Freund that sets the mood for the film--so much like the photography of "To Kill a Mockingbird". Katherine Hepburn is good as usual.
Somehow, the director Vincente Minnelli could not bring all the great strengths of the movie together to make it stand out. A good plot, a good cast, and a good cinematographer could not make a film that was in sum greater than its parts.
This is not Robert Taylor's best effort, yet it's an effort that cannot be ignored. He is menacing in his role but the menace is accentuated by the dark photography of Karl Freund that sets the mood for the film--so much like the photography of "To Kill a Mockingbird". Katherine Hepburn is good as usual.
Somehow, the director Vincente Minnelli could not bring all the great strengths of the movie together to make it stand out. A good plot, a good cast, and a good cinematographer could not make a film that was in sum greater than its parts.