Director: Nunnally Johnson
Ginger Rogers, Van Heflin, Gene Tierney, George Raft, Peggy Ann Garner, Reginald Gardiner, Virginia Leith, Otto Kruger, Cathleen Nesbitt, Skip Homeier
This film, viewed in its pan and scan version, is a classic example of how not showing widescreen, or in this case cinemascope, movies in the letterbox format completely distorts and seriously damages the film. There are several scenes in which characters enter a room and speak but we don't see them, or even worse when we see one character talking endlessly to thin air. Scenes in which four characters are supposed to be seen simultaneously and in which their reactions are as important as their dialogue are reduced to one or two visible characters. Please screen these movies as the film-makers intended. Having said that this is hardly a great movie. It is a dully made and predictable whodunnit with a fabulous performance by Ginger Rogers as a bitchy Broadway star. That is she is fabulous until the last couple of scenes when she seems to forget her characterisation altogether and opts for cheap melodramatics. Sadly Raft is quite terrible and Tierney has nothing to do. But Heflin is good and Peggy Ann Garner is effective in one of her few adult roles. Pleasant enough time-filler.
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