This superb film shows Ida Lupino in top form, oozing enough torment and emotion to knock you out cold. She almost does that to shy, retiring Bruce Bennett, who does a magnificent job of playing San Thomas, a famous blues pianist who 'suddenly disappeared because his wife left him', but now turns up just in time for Ida to fall head over heels for him. The great, hulking Bennett, who had once been in real life an Olympic silver medallist (and whom Ida calls affectionately her 'big lug') is just about the best choice old pro director Raoul Walsh could possibly have made for the role. His innate, brooding melancholy gives the film the picquancy and authenticity a mere performance alone could never have achieved. The chemistry between Bennett and Lupino is so hot you could fry an egg on it in ten seconds. The dialogue really crackles. Bennett: 'Isn't life difficult enough without getting it mixed up with memories?' Lupino: 'I don't know. I don't go back far enough yet.' The film is full of fabulous music, not least the Gershwin theme song 'The Man I Love', sung by Ida with such style your jaw drops and your heart stops. The film is a must for music lovers of the better popular music of the late forties, and the artists who are seen performing. Bennett really plays the piano himself, which is a greater surprise even than seeing Dan Duryea play in one of his crime thrillers. Some of those Hollywood actors certainly knew how to let rip on the keyboard. The whole film sizzles and zizzles. Robert Alda plays an odious serial seducer who owns a nightclub where Ida sings. She hates him. Here is what she says on one occasion when he walks in. Ida: 'Do you always come in without knocking? You almost scared me right out of my new hair dye.' A lot of the wit has unexpected twists like that, which emphasizes the intense individualism of Ida. She is a real role model for the Independent Woman, and the shocking scene where she violently slaps a man repeatedly in the face as if she were a hired thug is so incredible, because it is done so nonchalantly and naturally, that you can imagine her easily playing a female Al Capone in a female gangster film. But of course Ida has the proverbial heart of gold, though she gives it away too easily. What a brilliant woman Ida Lupino was, one of the few high intellects in Hollywood, director of several controversial films which tackled head on taboo subjects like disability and bigamy. She could set the screen on fire whether she was behind or in front of the camera. But did I say camera? She didn't even need one! All she had to do was breathe, and a fresh wind swept through Hollywood. All she had to do was look at a lens, and it melted. This film also features fine performances by Andrea King as a good gal and Dolores Moran as a bad gal, and some fine singing from Tony Romano. I've seen it twice, that's not enough.