Kenneth Fear who wrote the novel wrote "No Way Out" and a lot of other suspense works. To simply say the plot here is a boss gets upset with his mistress (secretary) and kills her would really be selling this movie way too short. Besides being one of the better films in Noir, this film is not credited with being an exceptional "dark comedy." I think this has to do with Jonathan Latimer writing the script. Latimer wrote a lot of excellent tv and films including Topper Returns and The Glass Key. Because of this background, he was able to make this noir script a genius with some great touches.
The cast is great too. Ray Milland's George Stroud is amazing and is a great counter-balance to Charles Laughton's Earl Janeth. Maureen O'Sullivan's Georgette Stroud gets kind of overshadowed at times because there is so much going on. There is only so much screen time and the mistress whose killed hogs some of it very well before her death. It's kind of funny that George spends so much time with her, yet Georgette hardly bats an eye lash when she finds out George was with her.
The comic element here is that after Earl murders Pauline the chase he starts to find the man who was in her apartment prior to his killing her is one of the great masterworks of dark comedy ever put into a noir film. It becomes comical all the times George ducks witnesses who saw him the night she was murdered. Even George gets a subtle jab in before she is killed - Pauline York : You know, Earl has a passion for obscurity. He won't even have his biography in 'Who's Who'.
George Stroud : Sure. He doesn't want to let his left hand know whose pocket the right one is picking.
Milland delivers this line so dramatically, the humor is not noticed unless you turn on the captions and look for it. During the chase where George is being chased by everyone thinking he is the killer, there are some really dark comedy classic line that makes this one look pale. Yet the elements are here in what is basically a great film on many levels.
Granted the technology is dated, but the script and the cast so good, and Rita Johnson (Pauline) even has some movies that were the type of comedy that is snuck into this one.
This film does start off with a sequence late in the film and then rewinds to the beginning. Usually I find this annoying, but in this one so much happens that it is not a problem. Do not let the title or the category fool you, this film is a classic dark comedy too.
The cast is great too. Ray Milland's George Stroud is amazing and is a great counter-balance to Charles Laughton's Earl Janeth. Maureen O'Sullivan's Georgette Stroud gets kind of overshadowed at times because there is so much going on. There is only so much screen time and the mistress whose killed hogs some of it very well before her death. It's kind of funny that George spends so much time with her, yet Georgette hardly bats an eye lash when she finds out George was with her.
The comic element here is that after Earl murders Pauline the chase he starts to find the man who was in her apartment prior to his killing her is one of the great masterworks of dark comedy ever put into a noir film. It becomes comical all the times George ducks witnesses who saw him the night she was murdered. Even George gets a subtle jab in before she is killed - Pauline York : You know, Earl has a passion for obscurity. He won't even have his biography in 'Who's Who'.
George Stroud : Sure. He doesn't want to let his left hand know whose pocket the right one is picking.
Milland delivers this line so dramatically, the humor is not noticed unless you turn on the captions and look for it. During the chase where George is being chased by everyone thinking he is the killer, there are some really dark comedy classic line that makes this one look pale. Yet the elements are here in what is basically a great film on many levels.
Granted the technology is dated, but the script and the cast so good, and Rita Johnson (Pauline) even has some movies that were the type of comedy that is snuck into this one.
This film does start off with a sequence late in the film and then rewinds to the beginning. Usually I find this annoying, but in this one so much happens that it is not a problem. Do not let the title or the category fool you, this film is a classic dark comedy too.