A seedy but interesting minor early film noir from soon-to-be-blacklisted Hollywood director Joseph Losey who went onto make his name in the U.K. with films like "The Servant" and "Accident".
Although the action kicks off with an apparent prowler at the window of Evelyn Keyes Susan Gilvray character, the peeping tom is never seen or heard of again. Two cops come to do a routine check up on the incident and it's probably no accident that almost the first time we see Van Heflin's Webb Garwood character he takes up the exact position where the voyeur would have stood. Young and cocky, he decides to try his chances with the young home-alone woman even though she's made it quite clear she's married and so he pays her a return visit, this time on his own at the end of his shift ostensibly to see she's still alright but in reality he's on the make.
Initially she tries to give him the brush off even as we hear the voice of her obviously older absent husband in the background in his job as a cosy, late-night radio dee-jay who pointedly signs off every broadcast with a loving message directed personally at her, but Heflin's persistence pays off and soon enough they're off and running in an affair which you just know will never end well.
A key piece of exposition passed on to the viewer from a third party is that Susan and her husband could never have the children she wanted due to infertility on his part but regardless of this it's obvious that Garwood wants her to himself and so sets up a convenient night-time shooting of the docile-looking spouse in our only sighting of him in the whole movie. Garwood contrives a fabricated defence and gets off with an accidental death verdict that acquits him of blame which initially offends Susan but before long he's schmoozed his way back into her affections helped by a hefty life insurance pay-out on the dead man's name and soon enough they marry. But not soon enough, as Susan becomes aware she is already several months pregnant, he can't handle the scandal and whisks her away to an eerie, storm-buffeted ghost town to have the baby away from prying eyes. The conclusion shows Heflin's character to be the selfish heel he undoubtedly is and karma duly comes his way.
I was interested in the blunt way that the couple's brazen affair was presented and in particular the clear inference about the physicality of their relationship making the widow pregnant which I thought was quite daring for the time. Heflin is very good as the cake-and-eat-it guy who should have left well alone and Keyes is also very good as the conflicted wife lured in by Heflin's youthful passion and likely prospect of motherhood.
Like I said, it's a grubby, everyday story with none of the main characters coming out of it well, but sometimes life is like that and this effective little feature deserves kudos for that, at the very least.
Although the action kicks off with an apparent prowler at the window of Evelyn Keyes Susan Gilvray character, the peeping tom is never seen or heard of again. Two cops come to do a routine check up on the incident and it's probably no accident that almost the first time we see Van Heflin's Webb Garwood character he takes up the exact position where the voyeur would have stood. Young and cocky, he decides to try his chances with the young home-alone woman even though she's made it quite clear she's married and so he pays her a return visit, this time on his own at the end of his shift ostensibly to see she's still alright but in reality he's on the make.
Initially she tries to give him the brush off even as we hear the voice of her obviously older absent husband in the background in his job as a cosy, late-night radio dee-jay who pointedly signs off every broadcast with a loving message directed personally at her, but Heflin's persistence pays off and soon enough they're off and running in an affair which you just know will never end well.
A key piece of exposition passed on to the viewer from a third party is that Susan and her husband could never have the children she wanted due to infertility on his part but regardless of this it's obvious that Garwood wants her to himself and so sets up a convenient night-time shooting of the docile-looking spouse in our only sighting of him in the whole movie. Garwood contrives a fabricated defence and gets off with an accidental death verdict that acquits him of blame which initially offends Susan but before long he's schmoozed his way back into her affections helped by a hefty life insurance pay-out on the dead man's name and soon enough they marry. But not soon enough, as Susan becomes aware she is already several months pregnant, he can't handle the scandal and whisks her away to an eerie, storm-buffeted ghost town to have the baby away from prying eyes. The conclusion shows Heflin's character to be the selfish heel he undoubtedly is and karma duly comes his way.
I was interested in the blunt way that the couple's brazen affair was presented and in particular the clear inference about the physicality of their relationship making the widow pregnant which I thought was quite daring for the time. Heflin is very good as the cake-and-eat-it guy who should have left well alone and Keyes is also very good as the conflicted wife lured in by Heflin's youthful passion and likely prospect of motherhood.
Like I said, it's a grubby, everyday story with none of the main characters coming out of it well, but sometimes life is like that and this effective little feature deserves kudos for that, at the very least.