An obviously drunken floozy (Mary Beth Hughes) is p.o.'d when drifter Richard Conte sits down next to her and responds to her model picture on the wall with a "used to be beautiful" response, tearing up on him like Muhammed Ali on Joe Frazier. He silences her with a kiss, and the next thing you know, he's being booked for her murder! Escaping from the police, he hooks up a ride with matronly Joan Bennett and her assistant Wanda Hendrix after helping them with their car, and before you know it, they are all avoiding the police, as it turns out Bennett knew the victim too, obviously not with much affection....
This is an enjoyable film noir with some implausibilities, but that does not stop it from being fun. You can't forget Hughes in her brief bit at the beginning, obviously suffering from one too many (and that includes men), and sadly, she is gone far too fast. I would have liked some flashbacks of her earlier story, especially once it came known that she had encounters with the women Conte ends up with. He is always a great anti-hero in films like this, someone you like but still don't fully trust. Bennett is still gorgeous with that smooth martini voice and the memory of her in early film noir like "Woman in the Window" is not forgotten. Her seemingly secure lady here has more than meets the eye to her. It's obvious that the romance is meant between Conte and Hendrix, but there's fire in Joan that hasn't quite sizzled as the years have gone by.
There's a fun cameo by "tough gal" Iris Adrian as a waitress who has had enough (tossing a menu at Conte's table as if she was a card dealer in Las Vegas) plus mostly gritty outdoor photography that keeps this a "day noir" as opposed to most of them which were "night noir". Passionate animal lovers beware, however, that there is a scene with a small dog that they may find disturbing. All in all, however, this isn't bad considering this was late in the film noir genre and that it was made by Allied Artists, the studio that took over Monogram just a few years before.
This is an enjoyable film noir with some implausibilities, but that does not stop it from being fun. You can't forget Hughes in her brief bit at the beginning, obviously suffering from one too many (and that includes men), and sadly, she is gone far too fast. I would have liked some flashbacks of her earlier story, especially once it came known that she had encounters with the women Conte ends up with. He is always a great anti-hero in films like this, someone you like but still don't fully trust. Bennett is still gorgeous with that smooth martini voice and the memory of her in early film noir like "Woman in the Window" is not forgotten. Her seemingly secure lady here has more than meets the eye to her. It's obvious that the romance is meant between Conte and Hendrix, but there's fire in Joan that hasn't quite sizzled as the years have gone by.
There's a fun cameo by "tough gal" Iris Adrian as a waitress who has had enough (tossing a menu at Conte's table as if she was a card dealer in Las Vegas) plus mostly gritty outdoor photography that keeps this a "day noir" as opposed to most of them which were "night noir". Passionate animal lovers beware, however, that there is a scene with a small dog that they may find disturbing. All in all, however, this isn't bad considering this was late in the film noir genre and that it was made by Allied Artists, the studio that took over Monogram just a few years before.