Vincent Price is the phlegmatic murderous, thieving millionaire. He has a live-in secretary, Ella Raines, just like every other phlegmatic murderous, thieving millionaire. He contacts small-time lawyer Edmond O'Brien and hires him as a kind of bodyguard, claiming that his life was threatened by a former business partner, recently released from the slams. Price stages a situation in which O'Brien must shoot and kill the former partner in the belief that it is self defense. The police lieutenant, William Bendix, is skeptical of the entire affair -- and he should be. But he spends the entire movie trying to pin the murders -- there's a later pragmatic murder too -- on O'Brien instead of the smooth Vincent Price.
It's essentially a B movie plot with some elements, especially in the dialog, that are not exactly witty but at least clever. Some thought went into the writing. The direction of Michael Gordon is pedestrian. There are a few night-time scenes with odd shadows and wet streets but this is not a film noir by any normal definition. It's just a story of murder, theft, intrigue, and romance, with a bit of comic brashness thrown in.
Edmond O'Brien began his career as a handsome young leading man in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in 1939, opposite the exquisite Maureen O'Hara. Then, immediately afterward it seems, he became flabby without ever becoming genuinely fat. He turned in some nice performances as a dying but still vital man in "DOA" and as the somewhat dim-witted Casca in MGM's "Julius Caesar." He was even better as the washed out, blurry, Southern senator in "Seven Days in May." Here, he gets the job done in a professional way.
Ella Raines was really beautiful in an entirely conventional way. It was principally her hair that did the job, a cascade of dark and shiny tresses ending with a margin of curls. Any normal man would love to run his toes through it. She seems to have taken some acting lessons from Lauren Bacall's early performances because she's languid and sultry and makes the most of her sex appeal.
Vincent Price was an aesthete and a genuinely nice guy, with whom everyone seemed to enjoy working. His role here is liminal -- somewhere between his earnest performances of the mid-40s and the tongue-in-cheek villainy of the 60s. He seems sincerely regretful about the need to kill his loyal and gorgeous secretary.
Overall, it's a success, though a minor one. We pretty much know what the ending will look like, with the snooty Price in chains, and O'Brien and Raines in a final clinch. Bendix mainly abets the romance.
It's essentially a B movie plot with some elements, especially in the dialog, that are not exactly witty but at least clever. Some thought went into the writing. The direction of Michael Gordon is pedestrian. There are a few night-time scenes with odd shadows and wet streets but this is not a film noir by any normal definition. It's just a story of murder, theft, intrigue, and romance, with a bit of comic brashness thrown in.
Edmond O'Brien began his career as a handsome young leading man in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in 1939, opposite the exquisite Maureen O'Hara. Then, immediately afterward it seems, he became flabby without ever becoming genuinely fat. He turned in some nice performances as a dying but still vital man in "DOA" and as the somewhat dim-witted Casca in MGM's "Julius Caesar." He was even better as the washed out, blurry, Southern senator in "Seven Days in May." Here, he gets the job done in a professional way.
Ella Raines was really beautiful in an entirely conventional way. It was principally her hair that did the job, a cascade of dark and shiny tresses ending with a margin of curls. Any normal man would love to run his toes through it. She seems to have taken some acting lessons from Lauren Bacall's early performances because she's languid and sultry and makes the most of her sex appeal.
Vincent Price was an aesthete and a genuinely nice guy, with whom everyone seemed to enjoy working. His role here is liminal -- somewhere between his earnest performances of the mid-40s and the tongue-in-cheek villainy of the 60s. He seems sincerely regretful about the need to kill his loyal and gorgeous secretary.
Overall, it's a success, though a minor one. We pretty much know what the ending will look like, with the snooty Price in chains, and O'Brien and Raines in a final clinch. Bendix mainly abets the romance.