| This classic but sometimes overlooked film is generally considered the first film noir, with its extraordinary, radically new look and tone, the product of stylized sets, bizarre angles and lighting, and a powerful blurring of dream and reality--qualities strongly influenced by German expressionist films of the 1920s. A reporter (John McGuire) discovers a murder but via his well-meaning testimony in the corrupt legal system ends up condemning an innocent ex-con (Elisha Cook, Jr.). While guiltily investigating the crime further on his own, the journalist eventually finds himself suspected in a second killing. Although he doesn't speak his first line of dialogue until the film's final ten minutes, Peter Lorre spiritually dominates the fascinating melodrama. |
