Alan Ladd stars as a tough talking reporter who comes across a dead girl while on another case. (He’s tracking down a runaway girl – he makes the girl look at the corpse to warn her that “she could have ended up like this” – nice, Alan!) Real life journos will no doubt laugh at the amount of spare time Ladd has to make his investigations.It’s a little like Laura, with its tough guy hero investigating the death of a woman, and sort of falling in love with her from hearing about her from other people. Of course, this structure is also a bit similar to Citizen Kane, in which Ladd had a small role. And as in The Glass Key, Ladd uses his sex appeal to get information, in this case from a blonde.
However it’s not as good as either of those three movies. The plot is confusing and it’s hard to care (the stakes are low - the girl is dead so it’s not a race against time to save her life, Ladd doesn’t really have to solve the mystery). The support cast is under-cast with the exception of Arthur Kennedy as the dead girl’s brother; Donna Reed, who plays the dead girl in flashback, is pretty, but lacks the charisma and intrigue of a Gene Tierney to make the role something special.
Ladd plays his role in his tough-talking tough guy style that can be so effective. Here it’s annoying. There’s something downright kinky in his obsession with Reed but this is never really explored. A disappointment.
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