Louis B Mayer didn't like noir but MGM did it proud. It has some gloss, sure, but there was the element of the trailer park about Lana Turner and that's well used here. She's beautiful, needy and trady - some great moments where she's honest, wanting more. John Garfield is solid, feels working class and dumb. Cecil Kellaway is tubby, bemused and dumb - surely he must expect people to kill him for his wife.
This is more faithful to the book than I'd be led to believe. It's got the other woman (Audrey Trotter), the DA, the dodgy lawyer (Hume Cronyn steals the show) the dodgy investigator, the attempt at murder that doesn't work, the one that does.
A marvel how it gets around the censor and still alludes to pre marital sex and suicide attempts. It runs almost two hours so has an epic sweep of emotion - you really go on a journey with Garfield and Turner: lust, greed, love, regret, fear, melachony, depression, acceptance.
Leon Ames' DA is annoying.
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