A film noir from 1947 starring Ida Lupino. Lupino is a downtrodden, plain daughter living at home w/a bedridden mother, Fay Bainter & an abusive father, Henry Hull. What brings a ray of hope to her life is the passel of convicts near their home on an extended stay (they're constructing a highway road) where she befriends one of the cons, played by Dane Clark who she feels sorry for after he gets reprimanded for an infraction (he's locked in a toolshed for it). After a row in the family partners w/some extreme weather outdoors, several convicts & their guards are killed in a landslide where the toolshed is demolished as well but Clark is nowhere to be found w/the edict going out that the presumption is that he's alive until a body is discovered. Lupino ends up at a remote cabin to calm down & after a swim in a nearby lake, she encounters Clark hiding out there but instead of turning him in, they appeal to each other's damaged upbringings & circumstances which eventually turns to love. After a posse nearly gets him at the cabin, Clark backtracks it to Lupino's manse where she hides him in a barn but w/the local sheriff & his posse closing in, it's only a matter of time before the lovers are caught. Lupino essentially would play the same part in a Western w/Joel McCrea called Colorado Territory 2 years later (which itself is a remake of High Sierra w/Humphrey Bogart) but instead of focusing on Clark, Lupino is front & center w/the outcome virtually the same. Director Jean Negulesco (Johnny Belinda/Three Coins in a Fountain) gets a lot of mileage out his dark compositions & Max Steiner's score w/Lupino a standout as a brittle woman finally coming into her own by falling in love w/the wrong man.
Review of Deep Valley
