A young lieutenant, Charles (Dean Harens), on his way home to San Francisco on leave finds that his bride-to-be has married another, and on a stop-over in New Orleans meets nightclub torch singer slash prostitute Jackie (Deanna Durbin) who tells him the story of how she married the charming young Robert (Gene Kelly) and how he got sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
Noir specialist Robert Siodmak makes the most of a slightly befuddled script that never comes anywhere near to explaining Kelly's psychopathy or, even more puzzling, the circumstances surrounding the murder, who was killed? and why? Anyway, Siodmak does a great job with very little, and you really enjoy the itsy-bitsy pieces of deft mise-en-scene, and the editing is always elegant. The actors are all wonderful, from Gale Sondergards' sphinx-like mother Monette and the devastatingly handsome and wide-eyed Dean Harens as the empathetic lieutenant, to the two leads.
Deanna Durbin, obviously very much the singing lark and golden egg with Universal, does a rare turn in a wholly dramatic part, and she is entirely convincing. She enters the scene in a slinking, sultry noir-fashion, singing 'Always' so all hearts must cry out, and she is always very much a woman. Gene Kelly is no less a wonder in this very early part of his as a psychopathic murderer, and even though he is ultimately left unexplained Kelly invests him with charm and ambiguity.
Noir specialist Robert Siodmak makes the most of a slightly befuddled script that never comes anywhere near to explaining Kelly's psychopathy or, even more puzzling, the circumstances surrounding the murder, who was killed? and why? Anyway, Siodmak does a great job with very little, and you really enjoy the itsy-bitsy pieces of deft mise-en-scene, and the editing is always elegant. The actors are all wonderful, from Gale Sondergards' sphinx-like mother Monette and the devastatingly handsome and wide-eyed Dean Harens as the empathetic lieutenant, to the two leads.
Deanna Durbin, obviously very much the singing lark and golden egg with Universal, does a rare turn in a wholly dramatic part, and she is entirely convincing. She enters the scene in a slinking, sultry noir-fashion, singing 'Always' so all hearts must cry out, and she is always very much a woman. Gene Kelly is no less a wonder in this very early part of his as a psychopathic murderer, and even though he is ultimately left unexplained Kelly invests him with charm and ambiguity.