Having recently watched John Brahms' two preceding movies, both centring on psychologically disturbed men (killers in fact) in period features, here the director presents us with an emotionally unstable woman in a contemporary setting. I enjoyed the two earlier films "The Lodger" and "Hangover Square" and I enjoyed this one too.
The lead character is played by Laraine Day, whose beauty attracts men like honey to a bee, although little do they know that she is a closet kleptomaniac with slippery fingers around rich folk's jewellery, her condition traceable to a childhood incident when she covets an expensive locket given to her by the rich little girl whose house her mother serves, but taken back away from her by the girl's mother as too good for her. When the locket later goes missing she is menacingly if mistakenly accused by the mother and given to believe that her shame at this has coloured her future conduct as an adult. Not only do her good looks attract the interest of deep men like Robert Mitchum's artist and Brian Aherne's doctor, it all climaxes in a super-charged betrothal scene to her third beau, the very rich Gene Raymond whose mother's nuptial gift to her of a locket finally unlocks years of denial and guilt on her part.
I'd have to say that the plot certainly overdoes the Freudian associations of Day's Cassandra-like obsession with jewellery. I also couldn't quite imagine Mitchum firstly as a tortured artist and secondly taking the extreme action he does as he gives up Day to Aherne, while the final coincidence of the other locket was just a bit too much to swallow.
Nevertheless, it was again stylishly directed by Brahm with strong performances by Day as the beguiling magpie Nancy, as adept at stealing men's hearts as old folk's jewellery, Aherne as the duped doctor and even Mitchum, miscast as he was. The layered flashbacks I found intriguing while the use of dramatic lighting, staging and music added greatly to the suspense.
1940's Hollywood movies were awash with psychologically disturbed individuals in films from Citizen Kane on down and while this particular feature overdoes the angst more than a bit, it was none the less entertaining for all that.
