This film noir from one of the masters of the genre is nothing more than ok. Although it has really solid acting from all of its cast and some very high points concerning its visual presentation, the truth is that its weak story full of plot holes makes the overall movie not that interesting.

After a dispute with his wife, civil engineer Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) goes for a night out in New York City with a mysterious woman that doesn’t want to reveal her identity. Once he gets back home, his wife has been killed and he’s sentenced to death as his alibi does not hold up. His only hope: his secretary Carol (Elle Raines) who will make the impossible to find the phantom lady.

Siodmak presents very effectively the conflict of the film in its first beats. The way how Mr Henderson meets the mysterious lady (Fay Helm), their night out together and their encounters with the several potential witnesses is nicely put together. Unfortunately, that does not hold up during the posterior investigation in which the police investigators try to corroborate Mr Henderson’s words. That section is rushed, superfluous and even misses a key witness in the drummer of the musical that they had gone to watch together, played by Elisha Cook Jr.

This balancing of the obvious talent of Siodmak as a filmmaker and the dull source material is a constant in this movie. As for example, when we proceed forward into the story, during the independent investigation led by Carol, who is secretly in love with Mr Henderson, the spark of Siodmak’s techniques and his work with camera operators and the director of photography Elwood Breddell comes afloat once again. The entire sequence with Elisha Cook Jr. may very well be the highpoint of the movie, as Cliff (Elisha Cook Jr’s character) glances on Carol, takes her to a sort of clandestine jazz room, as well as to her apartment to seduce her. This is continued with the introduction of the true killer, slightly overacted by Franchot Tone, as he gives a quite simple but effective speech on the power of hands to both being able to bring life as well as death (while those are lighted in a very appropriate fashion to enhance them) and following that with another beautifully shot scene in jail between Curtis and Raines.

After that is again downside, as the resolution of the film and the various moments of realisation for the character portrayed by Raines are rather conventional and foolishly conveniently placed. All of that leading into a rushed, illogical, and lacklustre conclusion.

This picture could easily be the epitome of the sentence “the story is everything”. Many times, we have listened that to make a good movie you need a good script, and this is a clear example of this. The movie goes as far as it possibly can, thanks to the great work of its cast and visual direction, but it misses the key ingredient to go one step beyond and that is a script that goes beyond cliché characters and that it presents a truly compelling story and drama.