Take a hard-edged Cornell Woolrich story about the people who prowl by night, give it a screenplay by Clifford Odets, one of America's most literate authors, add the direction of a Broadway rather than a Hollywood director and what do you have? A mish-mash, that's what. Bill Williams is
a sailor in NYC, away from his home base in Norfolk. He winds up playing poker in a rigged game with Calleia at his cafe. Lane, Calleia's sister, slips him some knockout potion. Upon awakening, he discovers that he has well over a thousand bucks in his pocket, but he doesn't know whence it came.
It's two in the morning, he is dizzy, and he doesn't know what to do so he enlists Hayward, a tired dime-a-dance girl. She is a cynic, hates her work, and wishes this blond sailor would leave her alone, but he is naive and fresh-faced. When she hears that he's carrying all that money that he
believes isn't his, she prevails on him to return it. They go to Lane's apartment and find her murdered. Lukas, the cab driver, walks into the apartment with them when they find the body. He realizes they are innocent and promises to help them. They see Constance Worth sneak into the place to
steal some revealing letters Lane had written about an illicit affair between Worth and Cowan. At Cowan's residence, Calleia has heard of his sister's murder and he beats Williams senseless with his gun. Williams is due to return to Norfolk but stays, and when Calleia realizes that he is not the
responsible party, the two join forces with Hayward, Lukas, and Cowan to try to learn the identity of the killer. A white carnation had been found at the scene of the murder, and Lane's ex-husband had been known to wear those. He is Marvin Miller, a blind pianist. They interrogate him, but he dies
of a heart attack out of fear he will be hurt by his former brother-in-law, Calleia. Williams is arrested by the cops and taken to the police station. Suddenly Lukas, the friendly cab driver, can take it no longer and confesses to killing Lane. Lane had been seeing his son-in-law and thus making
his daughter miserable; when she refused to end the affair, Lukas killed her. The picture concludes with Williams taking Hayward down to Norfolk, Virginia, to meet his mother.
If the above sounds complex, confusing, and splayed, you're right on the money. When you add Odets' dialog to it, you have low-life characters in sleazy areas speaking out-of-place philosophical cant. Lane, one of three sisters in the movies, born Dorothy Mulligan, retired from the screen after
this picture to go into real estate. Among her many husbands were Lew Ayres, director Roland West, and director Alexander Hall. She died in 1981. leave a comment