DIRECTED BY
Roy William Neill
WRITTEN BY
Roy Chanslor
STARRING
Dan Duryea,
June Vincent,
Peter Lorre
Kirk Bennett is sentenced to die for the murder of gorgeous actress Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling), but his wife (June Vincent) won’t give up trying to prove his innocence. She desperately enlists the aid of Marty Blair (Dan Duryea), a pickled pianist on the skids who happens to be the victim’s husband! The amateur sleuths go undercover as a performing duo, tracing clues to a ritzy Sunset Strip nightclub run by shady operator Marko (Peter Lorre). Bringing extra heat is Broderick Crawford as a dogged LAPD police captain. As usual in Woolrich stories, things aren’t what they seem—leading to one of the writer’s most memorable and unexpected climaxes. Known for his smarmy, villainous turns in many films of the period, here Duryea had his first role as a leading man in one of the era’s best adaptations of a novel by Cornell Woolrich, the undisputed master of noir fiction. Featuring fantastic art direction by Martin Obzina and inventive camerawork by Paul Ivano.
