This fine "B" film project is basically a psychological film, in the category of the many 1940s and 50s films that were made to explore depth-of-character and motivation. The idea their producers had was to go beyond the inspector calling and assembling suspects in the drawing room to detail who'd done a murder; in the newer mysteries, emphasis was placed upon gradually discovering clues and lines of inquiry, upon revealing actions, pretenses, questionings and complex relationships. This "modern" peeling away of layers of truth relating to an old crime's influence often works brilliantly in my judgment, especially in this movie, Not the least of this unpretentious and beautifully- photographed work's accomplishments is its avoidance of Freudian and false notions that so often muddy attempts to understand individuals' characters in film; Freud applies only to totalitarian societies. Here the investigator is in fact a beautiful woman, very intelligently played as insurance expert and woman-in-love by Betsy Drake. The object of her interest is a man who may or may not be crazy, well-portrayed by Robert Young. He has been suffering a series of accidents or breakdowns that are ruining his life; he has begun to doubt his own sanity. But she insightfully feelss someone is trying to wreck his career and his hopes for happiness. Their search for the perpetrator of the acts being done against him help them to unravel the mystery of his late wife's death and the secrets of the usual nasty small United States town and its equally small-minded citizens (a favorite target of intellectuals in the period, genuinely or not). The director was James V. Kerns, the cinematographer Hal Mohr, whose work was outstanding also. The cast apart from the attractive and bright leads was comprised of Morris Carnovsky, Jean Rogers, Steven Geray, Shirley Ballard, John Sutton and Florence Bates, all well-cast and in top form.. This film was an attempt to do on a low-budget what "Spellbound" had been able to accomplish; the house architect Young designs is outstanding modern architecture; the music by Bernard Nussbaum and the Tschaikovsky excerpts used are I believe add to the atmosphere very nicely. And the relations between characters, acerbic or warm, are unusually well-realized in dialogs and blocking.. This is a true sleeper, with its roots in "The Fountainhead"; and one that deserves much more attention that it has ever received; many elements of an intriguing mystery-noir storyline are quite successfully filmed here indeed.
