Harvey travels from Texas to New Orleans looking for his missing love, Capucine. As soon as he hops off the freight train that brought him to Louisiana, he meets Fonda, a girl of lax morals, and together they make their way into town. Harvey soon lands a job in a restaurant run by
Baxter. Eventually he discovers Capucine working in the Doll's House, a brothel run by Stanwyck, whose interest in Capucine is something more than professional. Harvey tries to get Capucine to come back to the farm with him, but she refuses. When Stanwyck discovers his intentions toward the object
of her affections, she has some of her bouncers beat him to a pulp. Fonda, who is also working for Stanwyck by this time, takes Harvey back to Baxter's restaurant where he is bandaged up. Fonda relates the whole story to Capucine, who goes to see him. Stanwyck and one of her goons (Rust) follow,
and a shootout at the restaurant ensues. Capucine is hit by a stray bullet and dies in Harvey's arms. Bearing no resemblance to its namesake novel by Nelson Algren, the film is mostly an exercise in luridness and implied deviance. Stanwyck's lesbian interest in Capucine is so delicately suggested
that one might not even notice it, although prudish critics proclaimed it a new low in cinematic perversion.
Much more interesting than the tensions between the characters were the tensions on the set. Producer Feldman was living with Capucine at the time, and although the setting of the film was 1931, he insisted that she wear only the latest Cardin gowns. Director Dmytryk had to shoot around this
glaring flaw as best he could. Fonda also contributed to the tensions on the set by turning up for shooting with a personal "secretary," a Greek ex-dancer who would advise Fonda on aspects of her performance. Together with Capucine, Fonda and her secretary formed a sort of cabal that would return
to Feldman and Capucine's residence and discuss the day's shooting, taking directorial decisions into their own hands. The script also had problems. Feldman sent it to seemingly dozens of writers for rewrites, including Clifford Odets, who told Dmytryk, "I can make any scene interesting, even
though it may have nothing to do with the story." His scenes were indeed interesting, but they do not appear in the film. Ben Hecht also did work on the script, but Feldman decided Hecht's rewrite wasn't "sexy" enough. Even during the shooting, Feldman sent over rewritten scenes almost every day
that Dmytryk would discuss with the actors, then discard. The final film certainly shows all the problems of its production. On the positive side, the film's title song received an Academy Award nomination, and Saul Bass designed a terrific opening credit sequence using a cat walking through
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