It's based on a James Cain novel. Joan Fontaine is the vamp who chews them up and spits them out -- it's an interesting thought that this is how she might have played Rebecca, given the chance. She does as much for Lanza, and it's up to Sara Montiel to put him back together. It's pure Cain melodrama, with Lanza's musical numbers the highlights, but there is an interesting bit of subtext to what he sings: popular songs are fine, but the closer he gets to an opera house, the greater the echo effects and the greater the danger to him.
I know that director Anthony Mann was a great stylist, but his A work never appealed to me. Like Negulesco, he was one of those directors who knew how to get great effects on a small budget, but give him a big budget, and it becomes money on the screen to me. Sometimes it worked (I'm sure the battle in SPARTACUS, in which the Romans attack in terrifying unison, only for the rebel slaves to roll burning logs through their disintegrating ranks, was his) and sometimes it didn't (the Dead Guy a Horse in EL CID). At his best, he could rely on James Stewart; at his worst, he had to make do with spectacle. This is middling and very watchable; but Vincent Price is wasted as Clifton Webb and only the singing is engrossing.
I know that director Anthony Mann was a great stylist, but his A work never appealed to me. Like Negulesco, he was one of those directors who knew how to get great effects on a small budget, but give him a big budget, and it becomes money on the screen to me. Sometimes it worked (I'm sure the battle in SPARTACUS, in which the Romans attack in terrifying unison, only for the rebel slaves to roll burning logs through their disintegrating ranks, was his) and sometimes it didn't (the Dead Guy a Horse in EL CID). At his best, he could rely on James Stewart; at his worst, he had to make do with spectacle. This is middling and very watchable; but Vincent Price is wasted as Clifton Webb and only the singing is engrossing.