This is a very good and interesting story concentrated into less than 70 minutes of tense action and intrigue, and like all stories of amnesia, this warrants some very fascinating insights into the human mind and its capacities. Warner Baxter introduces the film by being thrown out of a car at full speed, and he is later recalled to life with some difficulty at a hospital, where he has the good fortune to receive Ray Collins as his doctor. Ray Collins is intrigued by his case and allows him to live together with him, and eventually he inspires him to become a doctor and assistant. As such he develops into an indispensable doctor, psychologist and humanitarian, working miracles at hospitals and prisons as ultimately the director of the board of paroles, still without remembering anything of his dark past, but his former accomplices do and insist on trying to remind him, not knowing if he is faking his amnesia or actually having forgotten all about what they did together.
The story is marvelous and should have been a major subject for Hitchcock, and it's actually better than most of the Hitchcock plots, displaying some virtuoso psychology and a very fascinating character development of a man who as an amnesia patient started from scratch and made a jackpot. It is very inspiring, the acting is good, the direction is sustained enough all the way, so there are no flaws anywhere, and nothing for a critical eye to get caught on.
The story is marvelous and should have been a major subject for Hitchcock, and it's actually better than most of the Hitchcock plots, displaying some virtuoso psychology and a very fascinating character development of a man who as an amnesia patient started from scratch and made a jackpot. It is very inspiring, the acting is good, the direction is sustained enough all the way, so there are no flaws anywhere, and nothing for a critical eye to get caught on.