Enjoyable RKO film noir from director Robert Wise made during Lawrence Tierney's brief post Dillinger reign as a leading man. There's a really interesting story here - a man kills a couple out of impulsive jealousy in Reno and winds up following a divorcee to San Francisco; he winds up marrying the divorcee's sister.
In Devil Thumbs a Ride I thought the film should have been about the relationship between Tierney and the brassy blonde... well that kind of happens here with the focus being the relationship between Tierney and Claire Trevor.
The casting's not quite right - both are meant to be unable to resist each other in a Postman Always Rings Twice way but that worked because they were young and hot and her husband was old, and they were stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Here Trevor and Tierney are kind of old looking and she's got another option ( a dull rich man) and he's got this hot rich sister (Audrey Long who is too good looking for Tierney... maybe he's great in the sack). This feels like it should be a Joan Crawford vehicle with the Tierney part played by some young hunk.
Miscasting aside, the acting is very good. Superb support work from Walter Slezak (sleazy investigator), Elisha Cook Jnr and Esther Howard as well as the actors who play the couple who are killed (a shocking sequence where we hear thump thump thump as a dog watches).
It's bleak soul - two selfish people who can't resist each other - mean I can see why the censor didn't like it.
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