Reduced to making pictures with Republic with a limited budget and B-list actors didn't stop Fritz Lang producing this dark turn-of-the-century thriller. In Louis Hayward's Stephen Byrne, an aspiring writer with a devoted wife and faithful brother, Lang creates a memorably dastardly villain. When he makes a spurned pass at the household's pretty new maid as she descends the stairs in a dressing gown showing, for the time, a daring amount of bare leg, he unthinkingly strangles her and involves his over-loyal brother in covering up his tracks.
However, the river where they dump the body has a habit of returning abandoned items from whence they came and it's not too long before the sack containing the dead girl's body drifts back into view and a spiralling sequence of events ensue including a murder trial, accusations of an affair between wife and brother-in-law, two more attempted murders and a dramatic death-scene just before the final curtain.
I noticed Republic's supposedly cheap background sets less than usual, a tribute to Lang and his crew's imaginative use of the established noir elements of dark, expressionistic shadows, tracking shots and using framing devices, such as doors, (very apt, considering Stephen's setting up of his brother for murder).
I was impressed by the acting of the three lead players, Louis Hayward, in particular is superb as the borderline psychopath Stephen, a threatening leer never far from his face while Jane Wyatt is also very good as the loving wife whose eyes gradually open to her husband's true nature and Lee Bowman is redoubtable as the limping brother who puts sibling duty before adherence to the law.
Most of all though it's Lang's mean and moody direction which gradually brings the whole affair to the boil, even if the final haunting of Stephen before his demise seems to have wandered in from grand opera.
Nevertheless this fine little film noir is another notable entry in director Lang's distinguished list of works.
However, the river where they dump the body has a habit of returning abandoned items from whence they came and it's not too long before the sack containing the dead girl's body drifts back into view and a spiralling sequence of events ensue including a murder trial, accusations of an affair between wife and brother-in-law, two more attempted murders and a dramatic death-scene just before the final curtain.
I noticed Republic's supposedly cheap background sets less than usual, a tribute to Lang and his crew's imaginative use of the established noir elements of dark, expressionistic shadows, tracking shots and using framing devices, such as doors, (very apt, considering Stephen's setting up of his brother for murder).
I was impressed by the acting of the three lead players, Louis Hayward, in particular is superb as the borderline psychopath Stephen, a threatening leer never far from his face while Jane Wyatt is also very good as the loving wife whose eyes gradually open to her husband's true nature and Lee Bowman is redoubtable as the limping brother who puts sibling duty before adherence to the law.
Most of all though it's Lang's mean and moody direction which gradually brings the whole affair to the boil, even if the final haunting of Stephen before his demise seems to have wandered in from grand opera.
Nevertheless this fine little film noir is another notable entry in director Lang's distinguished list of works.