GamerTab That was an excellent one.

WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

JohnHowardReid A low-budget murder mystery and undemanding time-killer – which is a real shame. Despite the occasional use of actual locations, obvious studio inserts and phony backdrops give the cost-saving game away. With just a little bit more money in the till, these hazards could easily have been avoided. Admittedly, on it's own penny-pinching level, the movie is interesting enough, even if somewhat slowly paced and somewhat short on action. Nevertheless, it's acted agreeably enough to sustain interest, directed with sufficient tautness, and atmospherically photographed. The characters are both realistically written and tautly played by a well-night perfect cast: Richard Todd, in his first American film, plays with customary charm and stolidity – although not always photographed from the most flattering angles, particularly in his reverse shots. Ruth Roman is delightfully sultry even in what – despite the movie's poster art – is decidedly a goody-two-shoes role. Mercedes McCambridge is her usual neurotic character. Zachary Scott makes a late entrance – 60 minutes late to be precise – but proves a diverting red herring at a point in the narrative where interesting was just beginning to flag. Frank Conroy heads up a very able support cast. King Vidor has directed with his usual dramatic tautness and economy. With just a little bit more money up front, this could have been a high-class mystery yarn, even though the identity of the killer is obvious.

miriamwebster Another crazed logic-free over-acted melodrama in the same late Forties/early Fifties hothouse mode of Warners' Beyond The Forest, The Damned Don't Cry and This Woman Is Dangerous, this time sans the stellar fuel tank of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford. Judge this rating accordingly-- if you enjoyed aforementioned pictures, you'll get a kick out this; if not, take shelter. . .stormy weather indeed.No need to rehash plot revealed by earlier posters, a Texas-set dramatic chile con carne liberally laced with murder, unrequited love and dark secrets set in one of those those only-in-the-movies remote desert communities where people live miles apart in remote rancheros. . .but still show up in gowns and white dinner jackets at swank poolside barbecues that would put Manhattanites to shame.Although the smoldering-yet-vanilla Richard Todd, underused Ruth Roman and Zachery Scott(in a "hey-it's-a-paycheck" role that comes out of nowhere and getsthere fast) are ostensible stars, show is stolen by cactus-chomping Mercedes McCambridge in (apparently unintentional) schizophrenic role as a butch desert denizen (think of her role in Johnny Guitar, only less feminine) who not only has inexplicable crush on charmless Todd after he has allegedly killed his wife. . .but is nevertheless selected to serve on jury during his murder trial to boot! Things go off-cliff (as does at least one vehicle) from there.Whatever film lacks in reality, it more than makes up for in implausibility and psychological chaos that would baffle Freud. But rest assured, everyone gets their just deserts(sic). If you're in right frame of mind, a yucca minute.

folsominc2 All the correct elements for a romantic murder mystery suspense. A dark mysterious man who looks tortured by his problems and associations, a lively woman who is willing to try and believe a man who might be a murderer until the temptation of her imagination overcomes her, an unknown factor of the other woman who is extremely jealous and doesn't want anyone else to have the man she has always wanted, a emotionally disturbed brother who is a reactionary to events in life, and finally a secret that you are not sure you believe any more than the heroine. All set to a b/w backdrop that crawls up your skin while you are waiting for the inevitable moment when the man you have half fell in love with yourself shows his true colors. WOW! Perfect for dark, stormy nights curled up in front of the television with a cup of hot cocoa in one hand and a shotgun beside the other. Hee! But seriously, one of the most perfect mysteries I remember.

bmacv Richard Todd sits on death row, waiting execution for his wife's murder. At the eleventh hour, a reprieve and new trial come through; he's acquitted, thanks to one holdout juror (Mercedes McCambridge). Released, he disappears into the west Texas desert. Enter Ruth Roman, a touring actress in search of the desert's restorative climate. An innkeeper and his wife become solicitous of her when she stops in a small town, and lend her a car to get to the dude ranch where she hopes to recuperate. En route (in a scene prescient of Janet Leigh's flight from Phoenix in Psycho), she gets lost in thunderstorms and takes refuge in an abandoned house -- where Todd is holed up. They size one another up and, next morning, she continues on to the dude ranch. Run by McCambridge and her emotionally disturbed young brother (Darryl Hickman), it has closed down, but they agree to put Roman up for a few days. But she seeks out Todd again, despite conflicting stories about his guilt or innocence. Director King Vidor and scriptwriter Lenore Coffee, having goaded Bette Davis to pull out all the stops in Beyond The Forest two years earlier, here take on another overloaded melodrama, with mixed results. We see too little of key events and rely instead on hearsay about other characters, who sometimes haven't yet been sufficiently established (and the one brief flashback is a mistake -- we need either more or none). And of eight major characters, two or even three (including Zachary Scott) prove superfluous. But the movie's biggest stumble lies in the casting of Richard Todd. Remembered if at all as the title character in that echt-1950s biopic of pious patriotism A Man Called Peter, here his stiff British accent and acting falsify the whole Southwestern milieu (Lightning Strikes Twice, like Desert Fury of five years earlier, evokes the new Sunbelt of money and leisure). Happily, the female characters fall on the plus side. Kathryn Givney shows spunk and intelligence as the strangely solicitous Mrs. Nolan. Ruth Roman, on evidence of this movie and Tomorrow Is Another Day, had more range and subtlety than she was let display in her best known role as Farley Granger's mannikin-like fiancee in Strangers on a Train. But the acting honors, inevitably, fall to McCambridge. Looking especially tomboyish, her face registers every thought and feeling that passes through her head; she's hyper-alert in her moods and responses. And so, as was her custom during her disappointingly thin screen career, she delivers the most memorable performance of the film.