It starts furiously! Right away - in the
first five minutes - we are introduced to this wild detective Mark Dixon and
shortly after we have a corpse. And then it gets just better and better
with two brilliant twists of the story. So it isn’t surprising when pace
eventually drops but it’s still disappointing because movie changes from this
violent urban hard-boiled flick into (almost) sappy melodrama because Dixon
starts to have these moral dilemmas and struggles. In my opinion he should just
kick some more asses.
It looks and feels a lot like a low budget
b-movie which is great and just adds to crudeness and gritty feel. But it also surprised
me a bit because Preminger was already on directors A-list after his success
with Laura made in 1944. Dana Andrews and especially Gene Tierney were quite
known so maybe they spent all budget on the crew? Btw Karl Malden also has
minor role but I don’t think they needed to pay him much since it was one of
his first movies.
7/10 (but first 50 minutes are 10/10!)
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