Chalk up another referral for Karina Longworth whose book about the Hollywood life and times of Howard Hughes led me to this lesser known film noir, starring as it does Faith Domergue, one of the reportedly several young starlets the billionaire recluse harboured during his time in Tinseltown. This was her first major role and she's in good company with Robert Mitchum and Claude Rains as her co-stars in an entertaining if highly improbable film noir-cum-road movie the plot of which gradually reveals itself as it goes.
It starts with Domergue in a hospital bed, an apparent would-be suicide victim, who Mitchum's overworked doctor is pressed into yet more likely unpaid overtime to attend to. On the face of it happily going out with a diligent, doting if slightly dull nurse, once he brings Domergue round, he falls for her hook line and sinker, entering into a mad affair which will take in murder, an eventful road trip starting with the worst car trade-in deal you'll ever see in movies, a frankly bonkers run-in with a small-town bearded-weirdies festival, a later hook-up with carnival people and a final shoot-out and a great last-words scene from an expiring leading character.
Mitchum is the fly caught in femme-fatale Domergue's web, Rains his predecessor in the same trap but Domergue for me steals the show from her better known colleagues displaying at different times brazen sexual allure, starting face-up in a hospital gurney, then coy helplessness, frantic desperation and finally cold-blooded callousness by the end.
Well directed in the best noir fashion by John Farrow employing dark lighting, low-camera set-ups and cutting dialogue, its best to let yourself be led by events rather like Mitchum's character and not question them too much, no matter how unlikely they may seem. Your reward will be a taut and gritty little thriller well worth 82 minutes of your time, trust me.
It starts with Domergue in a hospital bed, an apparent would-be suicide victim, who Mitchum's overworked doctor is pressed into yet more likely unpaid overtime to attend to. On the face of it happily going out with a diligent, doting if slightly dull nurse, once he brings Domergue round, he falls for her hook line and sinker, entering into a mad affair which will take in murder, an eventful road trip starting with the worst car trade-in deal you'll ever see in movies, a frankly bonkers run-in with a small-town bearded-weirdies festival, a later hook-up with carnival people and a final shoot-out and a great last-words scene from an expiring leading character.
Mitchum is the fly caught in femme-fatale Domergue's web, Rains his predecessor in the same trap but Domergue for me steals the show from her better known colleagues displaying at different times brazen sexual allure, starting face-up in a hospital gurney, then coy helplessness, frantic desperation and finally cold-blooded callousness by the end.
Well directed in the best noir fashion by John Farrow employing dark lighting, low-camera set-ups and cutting dialogue, its best to let yourself be led by events rather like Mitchum's character and not question them too much, no matter how unlikely they may seem. Your reward will be a taut and gritty little thriller well worth 82 minutes of your time, trust me.