The genre of film noir has tried too many ways to explain the desperation of destructive characters to get away with immoral behavior, and most of the times, they work, but sometimes they do not. Such is the case for this B programmer rushed out of 20th Century Fox's second-string unit. What starts off as intriguing ends up being a convoluted, unbelievable mess that involves the murder of powerful Attorney John Eldridge and the attempts to pin the crime on several different characters including his wife (Jean Rogers), a client (Douglas Fowley) and his partner (Robert Shayne). But it is obvious that something suspicious is up, and if you were will spend 66 minutes trying to unravel the ball of yarn that is impossible to untangle.
The film gets very talky at several points throughout its brief running time, and even attempt to be poetic in certain ways makes it seem pretentious as well as outlandish. I could make the attempt to try to untangle it for those curious about it, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. To top off the complexity of the story is a rather silly tag put on that has a completely different mood than the rest of the film, showing desperation from the writers to tie it all up. Technically, the film is a bit better in that aspect, so one can enjoy some great photography and interesting camera shots, and while some of the characters have interesting backstories, it's not enough to make this one a success.
The film gets very talky at several points throughout its brief running time, and even attempt to be poetic in certain ways makes it seem pretentious as well as outlandish. I could make the attempt to try to untangle it for those curious about it, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. To top off the complexity of the story is a rather silly tag put on that has a completely different mood than the rest of the film, showing desperation from the writers to tie it all up. Technically, the film is a bit better in that aspect, so one can enjoy some great photography and interesting camera shots, and while some of the characters have interesting backstories, it's not enough to make this one a success.