A savings-and-loan bank is robbed; later, a police wiretap identifies meek bank teller Leon Poole as the inside man. In capturing him, detective Sam Wagner accidentally kills Poole's young wife, and at his trial Poole swears vengeance against Wagner. Poole begins his plans to get revenge when he escapes his captors.
Acting
Wendell Corey's chilling transformation from milquetoast to monster.
Direction
Boetticher squeezes maximum tension from minimal runtime.
Writing
Tight noir script that wastes zero words.
Director
Budd Boetticher
Joseph Cotten
Detective Sam Wagner
Rhonda Fleming
Lila Wagner
Wendell Corey
Leon 'Foggy' Poole
Alan Hale Jr.
Detective Denny
Michael Pate
Detective Chris Gillespie
John Larch
Otto Flanders
Virginia Christine
Mary Gillespie
Paul Bryar
Greg Boyd
Stanley Adams
Honor Farm Guard (uncredited)
Don Beddoe
Mr. Freeman (uncredited)
Gail Bonney
Mrs. Andrews (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Budd Boetticher made this between his Randolph Scott Westerns, proving he could do claustrophobic urban dread just as well as wide-open frontier suspense.
The film inverts noir conventions: usually the femme fatale destroys the man, here a man's obsession destroys a marriage from outside.
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Reactions from the web
Art Gillmore who narrated Highway Patrol,narrates this trailer.
@Suddenlyits1960
1956.
@tonycuellarsolis5345 2
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