Entertaining early noir, which helped establish the American reputation of director Richard Siomak. Alan Curtis, who you may recall as the valet in the love triangle from Buck Privates, is an unhappily married man who hooks up with a lonely woman one night; they spend the evening together - chasteley, this was 1944, they go see a band and hang out at a bar - then he goes home and discovers his wife has been murdered. It's only then we meet the real hero of the film - Ella Raines, Curtis' secretary, who loves him... and is determined to prove his innocence.
Raines is an interesting actor - she never became a star, she's very beautiful and a likeable performer (even if her face seems more suited to the femme fetale); she's got a great role to play here, plucky and brave (an early feminist in a way, even if she is trying to help her boss)... I love the sequence where she dresses as a tramp to interrogate drummer Elisa Cook Jnr (complete with intense, sexual-innuendo-laden drumming sequence).
Franchot Tone adds some needed gravitas as Curtis' friend and Thomas Gomez is excellent as an investigating cop. The script and story has a fair few logic holes but it's got terrific atmosphere and is visually impressive and it's not hard to see why it has a cult.
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