Brilliant intrigue getting you on a wayward journey through webs and jams of complications, especially concerning relationships, the outcome of which is impossible to guess - you can't even guess what's round the corner.
The film opens brilliantly with a regular burglary getting into trouble with hard knocks completely ruining a well furnished drugstore, and that's only the introduction. The curious thing is, that although nothing much happens for the next 30 minutes or so, as the two policemen set out an an impossible quest in search of a haystack to begin with in order to be able to start looking for a needle in it, which enterprise involves some boring routine, which not even horse races can brighten up, the film is tremendously exciting all the way, simply because you can't possibly know what to expect. Then Ida Lupino suddenly is helpful.
She is the star of the film, she always makes interesting characters of more than one shade and deep shadows into it, and here she really (unintentionally) gets her policeman involved in a serious fall.
Don Siegel was a genius comparable with Ben Hecht for poignant dialogue and smashing stories. When the plot finally gets going here, things really happen unexpectedly, and mystery is added to the complications, until everything is resolved in the end with a wonderful sens morale, for a gratifying release out of the unbearable excitement.
One mystery remains though after things get settled down. You'll never know what happened to Ida Lupino afterwards. She will probably just go on singing, maybe even "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", like she did when she got the plot started.
The film opens brilliantly with a regular burglary getting into trouble with hard knocks completely ruining a well furnished drugstore, and that's only the introduction. The curious thing is, that although nothing much happens for the next 30 minutes or so, as the two policemen set out an an impossible quest in search of a haystack to begin with in order to be able to start looking for a needle in it, which enterprise involves some boring routine, which not even horse races can brighten up, the film is tremendously exciting all the way, simply because you can't possibly know what to expect. Then Ida Lupino suddenly is helpful.
She is the star of the film, she always makes interesting characters of more than one shade and deep shadows into it, and here she really (unintentionally) gets her policeman involved in a serious fall.
Don Siegel was a genius comparable with Ben Hecht for poignant dialogue and smashing stories. When the plot finally gets going here, things really happen unexpectedly, and mystery is added to the complications, until everything is resolved in the end with a wonderful sens morale, for a gratifying release out of the unbearable excitement.
One mystery remains though after things get settled down. You'll never know what happened to Ida Lupino afterwards. She will probably just go on singing, maybe even "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", like she did when she got the plot started.