David Thomson was very dismissive of this film drawn from a novel by William P. McGivern, but probably never saw it. It's an impressive piece of work, and pretty much what one would expect from a film directed by and starring Edmond O'Brien: extremely well acted, especially by its star, but visually maybe trying just a little too hard (all those low angles and close ups). Not that I'm complaining; it looks marvellous throughout, particularly a sensational scene near the end filmed in a swimming baths. (People unfairly go on about the mike shadow, but that's only because it happens so early in the film.)
What gives this film soul, though, is the people. A blonde Carolyn Jones is even more amazingly amazing than usual, and anticipates Gloria Grahame's tingling scene with Robert Ryan in 'Odds Against Tomorrow' (also based on a McGivern novel) when the first question she asks Nolan when she learns he's a cop is "D'yever kill anybody?" And you feel sorry for a disconcerting number of minor characters: starting with Perc Martin, the bookie's runner Nolan murders in the opening sequence, poor Ernest Sternmuller, the original witness (a deaf mute eking out a sad little living playing the accordion for pennies), Nolan's kittenish girlfriend, and of course Barney Nolan himself, dreaming of his model home with the love of his life; even though we know that from scene one he's doomed, and he kicks an awful lot of dogs during the course of the film as he rushes headlong towards nemesis.
What gives this film soul, though, is the people. A blonde Carolyn Jones is even more amazingly amazing than usual, and anticipates Gloria Grahame's tingling scene with Robert Ryan in 'Odds Against Tomorrow' (also based on a McGivern novel) when the first question she asks Nolan when she learns he's a cop is "D'yever kill anybody?" And you feel sorry for a disconcerting number of minor characters: starting with Perc Martin, the bookie's runner Nolan murders in the opening sequence, poor Ernest Sternmuller, the original witness (a deaf mute eking out a sad little living playing the accordion for pennies), Nolan's kittenish girlfriend, and of course Barney Nolan himself, dreaming of his model home with the love of his life; even though we know that from scene one he's doomed, and he kicks an awful lot of dogs during the course of the film as he rushes headlong towards nemesis.