ThiefHott Too much of everything

Brightlyme i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

seymourblack-1 There must be many movies that arrive on-screen in a different form to what was originally envisaged but few can have undergone as radical a transformation as this psychological drama which was based on Mitchell Wilson's 1945 novel "None So Blind". Following negative audience responses to its previews, RKO insisted on substantial amounts of re-editing and re-shooting which resulted in an end-product that contained certain passages that became surreal, elliptical or somewhat oblique. Perversely, however, these qualities proved to be entirely consistent with the mysterious, enigmatic and unpredictable natures of its main characters and so made the final version both offbeat and interesting to watch.Lieutenant Scott Burnett (Robert Ryan), who works for the U.S. Coast Guard, is haunted by recurring nightmares that are a legacy of his wartime experiences and is also engaged to Eve Geddes (Nan Leslie), who's the daughter of a local boat builder. When he's carrying out one of his daily beach patrols on horseback, he meets a woman called Peggy Butler (Joan Bennett) who's collecting wood from the remains of an old shipwreck. As they talk, she immediately senses his torment and suggests a strategy that might help him to come to terms with his demons. A bond quickly develops between them and when Scott meets Peggy's husband, Tod (Charles Bickford), who's a famous artist who'd had to give up his work after losing his sight, he finds that the retired painter is keen to get to know him.When they all have dinner together at the Butlers' beach-side house, it soon becomes apparent to Scott that the married couple have a rather strained relationship and Peggy later tells him that she only stays with her husband because of the guilt she feels about having been responsible for accidentally blinding him during one of their many drinking sessions. Scott, who later becomes aware that Tod beats his wife, also becomes convinced that the painter isn't actually blind and decides to free Peggy from him by proving that she has no reason to keep feeling guilty about the accident that deprived Tod of his career.After becoming infatuated by Peggy, Scott cruelly neglects his fiancée and decides to test his theory about Tod's blindness by taking him to the edge of some nearby cliffs and leaving him there to make his own way back. This stunt and a later one, during which he tries to kill Tod, don't end in the ways that he'd hoped but matters eventually come to a head when Tod resorts to a very desperate and spectacular way of freeing himself from his past and his obsessions (viz. his painting and Peggy).The three main characters in this story are full of contradictions and obsessions that make them fascinating and bewildering. Robert Ryan, in a very intense performance, is extremely edgy, brittle and troubled as a man who knows that he's still unwell despite having been discharged from a military hospital after having been declared cured of his mental and physical injuries. Joan Bennett is tremendous in a role that required her to be consistently ambiguous in terms of what she says and does and Charles Bickford very subtly reveals the different facets of Tod's character and the complex nature of his relationship with Peggy.The bleak, isolated surroundings in which this drama unfolds contribute strongly to its unsettling atmosphere and its stormy weather and crashing waves powerfully symbolise the intense passions that are released within a love triangle where intentional duplicity and the nature of a complex relationship, provoke a vulnerable man into behaviour that's both murderous and self-destructive.

evening1 This film aspires to so much more than it's able to deliver.Starting out ambitiously with a dream sequence and setting up a compelling love triangle, this film disintegrates by its extremely conventional and unlikely conclusion.The characterizations here are crude. Joan Bennett's character tolerates a husband who smacks her in the face -- then alternatingly says she hates him and initiates passionate kisses with him. Robert Ryan's lieutenant has an animal passion for this glamorous doormat yet seems turned off by concerns that she's a tramp and then bizarrely challenges her husband to a fight in an ocean-tossed fishing boat.This movie collapses under its ambitious latticework with a happy ending that seems slapped together as an afterthought.

Martin Teller The Woman on the Beach A coast guard lieutenant gets caught in the middle of a tempestuous marriage. The film has a lot of psychological angles and is anchored by three strong characters with fine performances by Ryan, Bennett and Bickford. However, the story just never takes off and seems to float around without a destination. The emotions bubbling under the surface rarely materialize into compelling plot material and I was fighting boredom a lot of the time. I also found the cinematography uninspired (except for Ryan's surreal nightmare) and the score far too oppressive.6/10

edwagreen You'd think that a film starring Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan and Charles Bickford would be far better. For one thing, Bickford, already in 1947, looked far too old to play Bennett's blinded painter husband. Ryan is a coast guard officer who falls for Bennett and at the same time suspects that Bickford is feigning his blindness. That would have been a great premise to stick to, but it didn't and the picture may have suffered as a result.Ryan allows Bickford to fall off a rock and the two battle on a raft during a ferocious storm. Amazingly, there are no fatalities, which in itself is ridiculous.When I saw the ending, I thought that they would be bringing in Mrs. Danvers from "Rebecca," and even that scene ended in what many might view as a cop out.