There must be many movies that arrive on-screen in a different form to what was originally envisaged but few can have undergone as radical a transformation as this psychological drama which was based on Mitchell Wilson's 1945 novel "None So Blind". Following negative audience responses to its previews, RKO insisted on substantial amounts of re-editing and re-shooting which resulted in an end-product that contained certain passages that became surreal, elliptical or somewhat oblique. Perversely, however, these qualities proved to be entirely consistent with the mysterious, enigmatic and unpredictable natures of its main characters and so made the final version both offbeat and interesting to watch.
Lieutenant Scott Burnett (Robert Ryan), who works for the U.S. Coast Guard, is haunted by recurring nightmares that are a legacy of his wartime experiences and is also engaged to Eve Geddes (Nan Leslie), who's the daughter of a local boat builder. When he's carrying out one of his daily beach patrols on horseback, he meets a woman called Peggy Butler (Joan Bennett) who's collecting wood from the remains of an old shipwreck. As they talk, she immediately senses his torment and suggests a strategy that might help him to come to terms with his demons. A bond quickly develops between them and when Scott meets Peggy's husband, Tod (Charles Bickford), who's a famous artist who'd had to give up his work after losing his sight, he finds that the retired painter is keen to get to know him.
When they all have dinner together at the Butlers' beach-side house, it soon becomes apparent to Scott that the married couple have a rather strained relationship and Peggy later tells him that she only stays with her husband because of the guilt she feels about having been responsible for accidentally blinding him during one of their many drinking sessions. Scott, who later becomes aware that Tod beats his wife, also becomes convinced that the painter isn't actually blind and decides to free Peggy from him by proving that she has no reason to keep feeling guilty about the accident that deprived Tod of his career.
After becoming infatuated by Peggy, Scott cruelly neglects his fiancée and decides to test his theory about Tod's blindness by taking him to the edge of some nearby cliffs and leaving him there to make his own way back. This stunt and a later one, during which he tries to kill Tod, don't end in the ways that he'd hoped but matters eventually come to a head when Tod resorts to a very desperate and spectacular way of freeing himself from his past and his obsessions (viz. his painting and Peggy).
The three main characters in this story are full of contradictions and obsessions that make them fascinating and bewildering. Robert Ryan, in a very intense performance, is extremely edgy, brittle and troubled as a man who knows that he's still unwell despite having been discharged from a military hospital after having been declared cured of his mental and physical injuries. Joan Bennett is tremendous in a role that required her to be consistently ambiguous in terms of what she says and does and Charles Bickford very subtly reveals the different facets of Tod's character and the complex nature of his relationship with Peggy.
The bleak, isolated surroundings in which this drama unfolds contribute strongly to its unsettling atmosphere and its stormy weather and crashing waves powerfully symbolise the intense passions that are released within a love triangle where intentional duplicity and the nature of a complex relationship, provoke a vulnerable man into behaviour that's both murderous and self-destructive.
Lieutenant Scott Burnett (Robert Ryan), who works for the U.S. Coast Guard, is haunted by recurring nightmares that are a legacy of his wartime experiences and is also engaged to Eve Geddes (Nan Leslie), who's the daughter of a local boat builder. When he's carrying out one of his daily beach patrols on horseback, he meets a woman called Peggy Butler (Joan Bennett) who's collecting wood from the remains of an old shipwreck. As they talk, she immediately senses his torment and suggests a strategy that might help him to come to terms with his demons. A bond quickly develops between them and when Scott meets Peggy's husband, Tod (Charles Bickford), who's a famous artist who'd had to give up his work after losing his sight, he finds that the retired painter is keen to get to know him.
When they all have dinner together at the Butlers' beach-side house, it soon becomes apparent to Scott that the married couple have a rather strained relationship and Peggy later tells him that she only stays with her husband because of the guilt she feels about having been responsible for accidentally blinding him during one of their many drinking sessions. Scott, who later becomes aware that Tod beats his wife, also becomes convinced that the painter isn't actually blind and decides to free Peggy from him by proving that she has no reason to keep feeling guilty about the accident that deprived Tod of his career.
After becoming infatuated by Peggy, Scott cruelly neglects his fiancée and decides to test his theory about Tod's blindness by taking him to the edge of some nearby cliffs and leaving him there to make his own way back. This stunt and a later one, during which he tries to kill Tod, don't end in the ways that he'd hoped but matters eventually come to a head when Tod resorts to a very desperate and spectacular way of freeing himself from his past and his obsessions (viz. his painting and Peggy).
The three main characters in this story are full of contradictions and obsessions that make them fascinating and bewildering. Robert Ryan, in a very intense performance, is extremely edgy, brittle and troubled as a man who knows that he's still unwell despite having been discharged from a military hospital after having been declared cured of his mental and physical injuries. Joan Bennett is tremendous in a role that required her to be consistently ambiguous in terms of what she says and does and Charles Bickford very subtly reveals the different facets of Tod's character and the complex nature of his relationship with Peggy.
The bleak, isolated surroundings in which this drama unfolds contribute strongly to its unsettling atmosphere and its stormy weather and crashing waves powerfully symbolise the intense passions that are released within a love triangle where intentional duplicity and the nature of a complex relationship, provoke a vulnerable man into behaviour that's both murderous and self-destructive.