VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

LeonLouisRicci Nerve Racking and Powerful Film-Noir can be Seen as a Seminal Work and a very Accurate Display of the Noir Tropes that Defined the Genre.The Film is Exquisitely Photographed using Forced Perspective and is Bathed in Shadows and a Working Class Environment. The Script is also Purely Working Class with its Small Town, Claustrophobic Template of Trains, Smoke Stacks, and Seedy Hotels.Henry Fonda and Barbara Bel Geddes are Orphans who find each other. Fonda's Joe has just returned to "Civilization" from the War and there is much Dialog about the Experience and Semi-Traumatic Residue on the Veteran. Vincent Price is a Fake Intellectual, Liar and Lech.Dimitri Tiomkin's Score comes close to Overwhelming some Scenes but is Effective most of the Time. The Supporting Cast of Ann Dvorak, Elisha Cook, Charles McGraw, and others all lend Superior Support. A Minor Nitpick may be the Accelerated Pace of some of the Dialog that at times is a bit Breathtaking.The Movie's Strong Suit is the sometimes Expressionistic Frame and the Good Acting and Melodramatic Story. It is an Off-Beat, Interesting, and Little Seen Film that is a Must-See for Fans of Film-Noir, Henry Fonda, and the Post-War Milieu.

clanciai I guess the ambition behind this film was to make it better than the original, that is the French "Le jour se lève" by Marcel Carné with Jules Berry outstanding as the crook with the tragic hero Jean Gabin and his heart-breaking love Arletty in the greatest of French melodramas. In all films with Jean Gabin he dies in the end. Henry Fonda does not and is a somewhat more prosaic and convincing tragic hero, more humanly credible, than Jean Gabin's great cliché. Barbara Bel Geddes as his love is even more down to earth, a very palpable orphan girl displaying total honesty all the way, while Vincent Price as the crook, here a magician and expert trickster and con man living by professional lies all the way, is more subtle than Jules Berry but less of a character, the least convincing of the three. Ann Dvorak, on the other hand, makes an impressing sub and plays a very important part in triggering Henry Fonda up to his total fury, which simply must be sympathized with, which also the crowd does, which is expertly filmed. On the whole, the direction in this film is as marvelous as in any Anatole Litvak film, he knows like Elia Kazan how to handle people and make them convincing in probably some very deep knowledge of human nature, which makes this film a great experience to live through. To all this comes the music, Beethoven's seventh in fantastic arrangements, different every time, which adds to the moody dark atmosphere growing and ominously building up towards the inevitable catastrophe - the music puts the last touch to the masterpiece. I have to admit it, I felt the Jean Gabin film rather overrated, slow, heavy and even partly boring, but this simpler but more efficient American version is not. I have to give it ten points, even though it's no more than a humbler remake of one of the most famous of all noirs.

kenjha Holed up in his apartment after committing a murder, a depressed war veteran engages in a gun battle with the police while reflecting on the circumstances that led to the situation. It sounds intriguing on paper, but the script is rather sloppy, featuring flashbacks within flashbacks. It's basically an uninteresting story with dull characters. Fonda tries to make something of his role, but is given little to work with. Bel Geddes makes an impressive film debut, and Dvorak and Price are also fine, but they are all let down by the screenplay. Litvak has made better films, but here his staging of police work and the shootout is poorly executed.

robert-temple-1 Putting aside the fact that this film is a remake of a French classic by Marcel Carne, and trying to judge it independently, it is a superb noir production. It most notable element is a spectacular film debut by Barbara Bel Geddes as the innocent victim of a sleazy seducer (Vincent Price at his oiliest), who starts out frozen from her traumatic origins in an orphanage and ends up screaming her heart out with all the passion of first love. Geddes holds back in the first half of the story, refusing to accept or engage with Henry Fonda, who has declared his love for her so readily. Not only does she find it difficult to trust him, but she is in thrall to a dream created by the master illusionist Price. Fonda does very well in this film, being less droll than usual, and actually manages to convince us that he is emotionally engaged rather than a bemused spectator. The fantastic amount of firepower trained on him as he is holed up in his room in a boarding house, and the readiness of the police to shoot first and think later, is horrifying. I found it bizarre in the extreme that the music credit on the film stated 'Music composed and conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin', when most of it was a dumbed-down re-scoring by Tiomkin of the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. That is really an outrageous 'steal'. Anna Dvorak is very good indeed in this film as Charlene, who has seen it all and then some, falls for Fonda but takes it on the chin when she sees he doesn't see her. But the film must have been seriously cut, because at one point, we see Fonda throwing himself onto Charlene's bed with a very familiar air, obviously being her lover, but the dialogue makes no overt reference to there even being a meaningful relationship. Clearly a gutted script! If you look too hard, you will see a lot of holes in the story and the action. But this film is pulled off satisfactorily anyway, is gripping and because of Geddes, is also moving.