One of the best movies made at RKO during the 1950s - no great acclaim admittedly - and one of the final American works from Fritz Lang. It's pulpy noir time as several reporters compete with each other over finding a serial killer.
Lang's direction still had energy and he benefits from a terrific cast, most of whom do their acting with a cigarette and/or drink: Dana Andrews (playing an alcoholic - ironic since in real life Dana was a famous boozer), Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, Thomas Mitchell, Rhonda Fleming, James Craig, George Sanders. Everyone is in good form and mean the office politics side of this is genuinely interesting, with all the back-biting and manipulation and lack of ethics.
Less interesting is the serial killer stuff - John Drew Barrymore is really bad as the leather jacket wearing "momma's boy" who blames it all on momma. There's some awful scenes like where Dana Andrews taunts the killer and uses his bland virginal girlfriend (Sally Forrest) as bait. The romance between Andrews and Forrest is poor - you wish he'd go off with Lupino again. And what's with that ending where Forrest just recites the fate of all the characters?
It's silly but there is a great cast and sense of doom. I enjoyed it.
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