Bill Williams is a sailor on leave in New York during the War. He gets caught up with ola Lane, drinks too much, and winds up with a lot of cash in his pocket and no idea how it got there. When he goes to return it, he discovers Miss Lane dead. With the help of taxi dancer Susan Hayward and cabbie Paul Lukas, he goes in search of the killer.
I have a hard to thinking this a great film. Harold Clurman may have been a great director of Odets' work on stage, but in this movie, his theatrical handling of the playwright's words makes every word an exercise in sententious bravado. While Williams is great as the young innocent who wakes up with a bundle of Lola Lane's money in his pocket, a lot of skilled movie performers seem ill at ease with the mannered, often nonsensical rhythms of the prose.
It's still a remarkable work, if only for Nick Musuraca's noirish camerawork, but Clurman wisely went back to Broadway, and the cast, in their future works, gave better, less mannered performances.
I have a hard to thinking this a great film. Harold Clurman may have been a great director of Odets' work on stage, but in this movie, his theatrical handling of the playwright's words makes every word an exercise in sententious bravado. While Williams is great as the young innocent who wakes up with a bundle of Lola Lane's money in his pocket, a lot of skilled movie performers seem ill at ease with the mannered, often nonsensical rhythms of the prose.
It's still a remarkable work, if only for Nick Musuraca's noirish camerawork, but Clurman wisely went back to Broadway, and the cast, in their future works, gave better, less mannered performances.