Character actor Laird Cregar (in a rare starring role) headlines this exceptionally loose adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's novel about a mild-mannered composer with a latent homicidal streak. In gas-lit London (via Hollywood), Cregar falls for Linda Darnell, playing a greedy chanteuse who uses the pianist for his songwriting talents; little does she know, he also harbors a Mr. Hyde-like tendency to go off the beam whenever he hears loud, obtrusive noises. Cregar (who has the hulking frame of a Boris Karloff and the smudgy, pudgy face of a Lee J. Cobb) doesn't deliver a performance with multi-dimensions--but then, the picture itself is rather cut-and-dry. Without cinematographer Joseph LaShelle's swooping camera movements and Bernard Herrmann's scintillating score, the movie wouldn't be much more than another Jack the Ripper variation. A few stand-out moments (a bonfire sequence which recalls the German Expressionists, also the frenzied finale which must be seen to be believed) causes the film to linger in one's memory. Cregar died in real-life before the picture was released; he fills the bill without possessing any actual charisma or evidence of an uncanny grasp of verisimilitude. **1/2 from ****