Dorothy Lamour is not capable of acting the noir lead. Sterling Hayden the insurance investigator should have been given the entire job of catching the killer; he's peripheral here.
Napier's dream of killing his wife becomes a reality when secretary to the shrink shares his dream with Duryea.
Duryea just acts out the dream and steals the jewels.
It could have been noir, but the injected jokes rule that out; jokes never occur in noir. The unrelenting determinism of noir is lacking with too many twists and turns in the plot. Most of all the miscasted Lamour and the joking detectives take this film down but not out thanks to Duryea.
Review of Manhandled
