Drifter Dana Andrews hops off a bus on a lonely night in a little coastal town. He walks into a diner called Pop's and makes himself at home. It's not long before Andrews encounters two women:
Sultry Linda Darnell is Stella, a waitress at Pop's. She is hot stuff--every man who meets her instantly falls in love. Andrews catches Stella's attention pretty easily but she's not interested in a man with only one dollar in his pocket. He tells her he knows where he can get $12,500--and starts hanging around...
Prim Alice Faye, who lives with her sister in a large house that their father has left them. Andrews has discovered that Faye and sister share a $25,000 estate just waiting to be cashed in. He befriends and pursues her, planning to marry her, grab her money, and run off with Darnell.
Dana Andrews is kind of a rat in this story. The men he meets at Pop's are equally unsavory: Salesman Bruce Cabot, who seems to be Stella's current boyfriend; former policeman Charles Bickford, crotchety and vaguely menacing; and Pop himself, Percy Kilbride, who is even more obsessed with Stella than everybody else.
Darnell is outstanding as Stella, and it helps that she gets the best close ups and dialog. Alice Faye, on the other hand, has a role that is just not convincing....why does she fall for such an obvious crook as Andrews? We just don't know. (The theory that studio brass insisted on boosting Darnell's role at Faye's expense seems to make sense, though--if Faye's part was cut way down, no wonder she seems like such a dolt.)
Andrews gives a good performance as the scheming, dreaming, irresistible drifter...his sometimes-despicable character is indeed almost sympathetic. Anne Revere has a small but important role as Faye's not-so-gullible sister.
The plot includes not only Andrews's wicked plans but other characters' jealous schemes as well, leading up to an eventual murder. The picture's pace is deliberate but never boring; it seems like no matter which combination of characters is on screen, we are watching them do their best to deceive and dissemble.
Not completely satisfying but definitely worthwhile, especially for the beautiful photography and Darnell's breezy command of all these men's emotions.
