Don Macpherson in 'Time Out': 'Superbly crafted pulp is revealed at every level: in the intricate script by Daniel Mainwaring (whose credits for Phenix City Story and Invasion of the Body Snatchers need no further recommendation), the almost abstract lighting patterns of Nick Musuraca (previously perfected in Cat People and The Spiral Staircase), and the downbeat otherworldliness of Jacques Tourneur (only equalled in his I Walked With a Zombie). All these B movie poets were under contract to RKO in the winter of 1946, and produced the best movie of everyone involved...'.
Which is nicely put, but not quite the whole story. Mainwaring adapted his own novel 'Build My Gallows High', which then James M. Cain rewrote, simplifying the flashback structure and 'removing every last shred of lovability from the femme fatale'; Tourneur then had suggestions, and RKO script doctor Frank Fenton finally removed some of Cain's excesses and polished the whole thing, writing new dialogue for nearly every scene (I trust Lee Server's impressively researched book on Mitchum for this material).
Which also provides interesting stuff about Musuraca, who had found that if he was overlighting a scene, it was because one initial light was badly placed or adjusted, and once you'd fixed that, you could then take lights away and simplify everything. "It was so dark on the set, "said Jane Greer, "you didn't know who else was there half the time".
It was actually just filmed around Bridgeport in the Sierras and back at RKO.
Anyway, despite not being a critical or commercial hit at the time, it's still fabulous. With Mitchum (who Tourneur loved for his ability to listen) are Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Paul Valentine (good as hood), Virginia Huston (nice GF), Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb (nice guy back home), Steve Brodie (partner), Dickie Moore really good as deaf kid, Ken Niles (Eels).
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