Fatalité

My God, Bosley Crowther's an idiot. The one thing in this good noir from scenarist Phil Yordan and director Frank Tuttle that the former New York Times critic liked, namely the ice skating stuff, is the one thing in the film that is truly ordinary. Everything else is either better than expected (i.e. Belita's acting) or fairly compelling (i.e. Barry Sullivan and Eugene Palette's performances). And while the film did not, ironically, contain much suspense it had plentiful supplies of darkness and disturbance courtesy of Yordan's terse dialogue and Tuttle's three AM of the soul direction. Indeed, the general Woolrichian look and feel of the film has caused me to want to view more of this unknown director's work (only film of his that I can recall viewing is "This Gun For Hire" with Ladd/Lake, which I also liked). Give it a B.

PS...Wonder why Barry Sullivan never made it (in movies, that is) while less talented contemporaries with the same look, like Stack, Mature and Wilde, did?