Atypical Nicholas Ray film, not of the ilk of They Drive By Night, In a Lonely Place or On Dangerous Ground; but perhaps more recognisable as one from the pen of Citizen Kane's Herman Mankiewicz, with its flashbacky structure helping to solve the film's riddle - who shot Gloria Grahame when Maureen O'Hara is the only other person in the room, and she has confessed? I still don't really understand why she confesses, but it sounds like she would have changed her story soon anyway. O'Hara isn't as good here as she is in a John Ford film, Grahame is sweet, Douglas on usual form.
What makes it more interesting is Melvyn Douglas's involvement with detective Jay C. Flippen and his amateur sleuth wife Mary Philips, which brings a quirky element in to it.
With Bill Williams, Victor Jory, Robert Warwick, Ann Shoemaker, Virginia Farmer (maid), Ellen Corby.
Photographed by George Diskant and one of those rare RKO films that wasn't scored by J Roy Hunt (it was Friedrich Hollaender). Based on Vicki Baum novel 'Mortgage on Life' (also 'Grand Hotel').
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