George Taylor returns from the WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, he tries to track down his old identity, stumbling into a 3-year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.
It's a decent picture, though the auteur touches (the visual stiffness, the tendency to drag scenes out long after the dramatic point has been made) are largely negative.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Reader,
25 Apr 2003
fresh:
As a straight piece of melodramatic staging, this Twentieth Century-Fox film is all right.
– Bosley Crowther,
New York Times,
28 Jan 2006
fresh:
Out of this familiar premise, Mankiewicz has fashioned a classic film noir.
– Tom Milne,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
Joseph L. Mankiewicz's nervous nightmare (made in his first year of directing) isn't an all-hallowed member of the noir canon -- it's fairly slick, and Mankiewicz has little or no existentialist cred. But it sings the school's black-hearted lament.