Brian Donlevy plays Walter Williams, a self made business man who prides himself on his cleverness and on his wife, upon whom he dotes to the point of sappiness. But his wife Irene (Helen Walker) wants to dump her handsome well off husband for slimy Jim Torrence. OK, so love is blind.
Irene comes up with a rather involved plan that gets her husband giving Torrence a ride to Denver, with hubby thinking he is a distant relative. On the way Torrence is supposed to kill Walter and make it look like a hitchhiker did it. Nobody knows where Walter went and with whom, so Irene could lie and say he went there alone.
But things don't go as planned and, although Jim hits Walter in the head with a wrench and rolls him into a ditch nearby, Walter is not dead. Scared by passing motorists who stop to see if he needs help, Jim rushes off in Walter's car and hits an oncoming gasoline truck. Jim is killed and his body burned beyond recognition. so everybody thinks it is Walter, including the not so grieving widow.
So meanwhile, based on Jim's last words to Walter, he knows that his wife plotted his death. His pride is as injured if not more than his head. He drifts until he finds himself in a small town in Idaho and makes a new life for himself working as a mechanic in a gas station owned by a beautiful war widow, played by Ella Raines.
Back in San Francisco, clever cop Tom Quincy (Charles Coburn) makes a case for Irene murdering her husband based on him finding out about the boyfriend. Walter is reading the papers and decides to just let Irene fry since she did intend to kill him anyways. So she has a boyfriend, the guy in the car DID burn to death, so there is no evidence any murder took place. Do the DA and judge not get this?
How does this work out? Watch and find out. I'll just say that for the production code to be fulfilled requires a second and equally "So what??" piece of evidence that doesn't prove a murder didn't take place anymore than Irene having a boyfriend proved one did take place. If you can ignore all that, it is a great story and I would recommend it.
With really good players, it is a shame this one is unrestored and in the public domain, but that also makes it easy to find and view.
Irene comes up with a rather involved plan that gets her husband giving Torrence a ride to Denver, with hubby thinking he is a distant relative. On the way Torrence is supposed to kill Walter and make it look like a hitchhiker did it. Nobody knows where Walter went and with whom, so Irene could lie and say he went there alone.
But things don't go as planned and, although Jim hits Walter in the head with a wrench and rolls him into a ditch nearby, Walter is not dead. Scared by passing motorists who stop to see if he needs help, Jim rushes off in Walter's car and hits an oncoming gasoline truck. Jim is killed and his body burned beyond recognition. so everybody thinks it is Walter, including the not so grieving widow.
So meanwhile, based on Jim's last words to Walter, he knows that his wife plotted his death. His pride is as injured if not more than his head. He drifts until he finds himself in a small town in Idaho and makes a new life for himself working as a mechanic in a gas station owned by a beautiful war widow, played by Ella Raines.
Back in San Francisco, clever cop Tom Quincy (Charles Coburn) makes a case for Irene murdering her husband based on him finding out about the boyfriend. Walter is reading the papers and decides to just let Irene fry since she did intend to kill him anyways. So she has a boyfriend, the guy in the car DID burn to death, so there is no evidence any murder took place. Do the DA and judge not get this?
How does this work out? Watch and find out. I'll just say that for the production code to be fulfilled requires a second and equally "So what??" piece of evidence that doesn't prove a murder didn't take place anymore than Irene having a boyfriend proved one did take place. If you can ignore all that, it is a great story and I would recommend it.
With really good players, it is a shame this one is unrestored and in the public domain, but that also makes it easy to find and view.