Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is an advice columnist for the San Francisco Post. LAPD detective William Doyle (Sterling Hayden) and Captain Charlie Alidos arrive for a case. She helps Doyle to solve the case and is offered a big opportunity. Instead, she abandons her career to marry Doyle and follow him to LA. Doyle is a by-the-books guy with no ambitions to climb higher. Kathy claims to have no ambitions other than to be a housewife. Soon, she chafes at the banalities of a suburban housewife life and is pushing Doyle up the ladder any which way possible. She deliberately gets into a car accident with Alice Pope to connect with her husband, Police Inspector Tony Pope (Raymond Burr). This sets her in conflict with the Alidos and down a dark path.
Barbara Stanwyck is a noir femme fatale stuck in suburbia. It is a fascinating concept and it has the amazing Stanwyck. She does need a more compelling opponent. It would have been interesting to have the Alidos have a bigger role. As such, it is a fascinating character for Stanwyck. She has the balls and the rooting interest. Although, I don't think that it's necessary to start her off as a career woman. It would have been more compelling to do a darker side of suburban life by starting everyone in that nuclear family utopia.
Barbara Stanwyck is a noir femme fatale stuck in suburbia. It is a fascinating concept and it has the amazing Stanwyck. She does need a more compelling opponent. It would have been interesting to have the Alidos have a bigger role. As such, it is a fascinating character for Stanwyck. She has the balls and the rooting interest. Although, I don't think that it's necessary to start her off as a career woman. It would have been more compelling to do a darker side of suburban life by starting everyone in that nuclear family utopia.