In William Irish's aka Cornell Woolrich's novels ,the gangsters always take a back seat , and sometimes they are totally absent :theirs is the story of the lonesome hero (more often heroine) who shows a tendency to react to events instead of initiating them ; he's the man next door often too honest :here the hero (Robert Cummings) brings back a wallet and it leads him to romantic exotic adventures in Cuba with a beautiful blonde (Michelle Morgan )who is nothing but a femme fatale (this character is not part of Irish's world) even though the viewer first suspects it must be a setup woven by the two sinister-looking gangsters (Steve Cochran and Peter Lorre).
In spite (or because of ) the paucity of the budget, the settings (particularly Cuba) devoid of any realism , the movie fascinates with his sense of claustrophobia :the cellar where a man is attacked by a dog we don't see and the broken bottle of wine which represents blood which has been shed ; the tiny cabin where the drifters hide, the narrow streets where the panick-striken chauffeur tries to escape from invisible enemies.
A part of the movie is dreamlike and as there is no real transition between reality and what one would call delirium ,the viewer may sometimes get lost in the somewhat disjointed plot; it makes the film look like "the woman in the window" (1944) but Ripley is not Lang .
For a French viewer ,the presence of Michele Morgan -who is a superstar in her native country - adds to the mystery;it's all the most disturbing since she dies (or does she?) halfway through.Morgan would be featured in another Irish adaptation "obsession" by Jean Delannoy (1954) ,based on the writer's short story " silent as a grave" .As for Cummings,his part will remind you of Hitchcock's "saboteur"(1942) ,which is also a "chase " .
In spite (or because of ) the paucity of the budget, the settings (particularly Cuba) devoid of any realism , the movie fascinates with his sense of claustrophobia :the cellar where a man is attacked by a dog we don't see and the broken bottle of wine which represents blood which has been shed ; the tiny cabin where the drifters hide, the narrow streets where the panick-striken chauffeur tries to escape from invisible enemies.
A part of the movie is dreamlike and as there is no real transition between reality and what one would call delirium ,the viewer may sometimes get lost in the somewhat disjointed plot; it makes the film look like "the woman in the window" (1944) but Ripley is not Lang .
For a French viewer ,the presence of Michele Morgan -who is a superstar in her native country - adds to the mystery;it's all the most disturbing since she dies (or does she?) halfway through.Morgan would be featured in another Irish adaptation "obsession" by Jean Delannoy (1954) ,based on the writer's short story " silent as a grave" .As for Cummings,his part will remind you of Hitchcock's "saboteur"(1942) ,which is also a "chase " .