My critical faculties such as they are were severely impaired by what has to be one of the worst prints I have ever viewed, one is tempted to describe it as a tenth-generation print though in reality it was probably no more than a second or third; nevertheless it veered throughout from black and white through sepia to washed-out pastel. This distracted from the storyline which was hardly better and gave the impression that about one third had been cut. Palance, as he was wont to do in those early days, phoned in his menacing heavy though even as I write this I have to acknowledge that this very same year (1953) he scored much more heavily in a similar role - as Wilson, the gunfighter-for-hire in Shane - possibly because George Stevens was able to do what Rudolph Mate was not and get Palance to apply the less-is-more technique to the art of playing the heavy. Linda Darnell's best acting years - if indeed that is not a contradiction in terms - were well behind her and there was virtually no chemistry between her and Mitchum who was, as always, easy to watch. It's just possible that a decent print would help though unlikely.
Review of Second Chance
