Helen Deutsch apparently changed Sam Fuller's original screenplay ending which he thought was 'a shame'. The film oddly fits into Sirk's
oeuvre, somehow, representing another broken / conflicted family - this one with murderer parolee Patricia Knight coming to stay with parole officer Cornel Wilde's family, which includes a blind mother Ester Minciotti (shades of
Magnificent Obsession). But she's still smitten with bad guy John Baragrey... She and Wilde go on the run after she shoots the ex and end up in an oil drilling community (shades of
Written on the Wind), married, trapped, guilty...
The Bradbury features as the parole office and there's a spectacular stunt that displays the nice lift. Sirk moves his camera elegantly and there's a great moment where the fleeing and newly married couple steal a 'Just married' car. Charles Lawton shot it. Sirk's last film for Columbia.
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