User Reviews

Jeff Lundy (William Eythe) is in the oil drilling business. He's been away from his hometown for a long time and when he returns, he finds that his old girlfriend, Betty (Barbara Britton) is now engaged to a much older guy, Gus (yes, it IS Gus--Nestor Paiva). Anyone who knows old films knows that it's inevitable that Jeff and Betty will eventually get together, you have a lot of film in between.

In between this, there are lots of problems--such as a crazy guy who is vicious and dangerous (nearly killing Betty's father and Jeff) and the wedding. However, as the wedding cannot take place since Jeff and Betty are destined to be together, the same man manages to hurt Gus very badly. Unfortunately, when Gus recovers, he thinks Jeff and Betty are going to run off together and ends up getting himself killed when he attacks Jeff.

I cannot stress enough that you know what will happen and the surprises in between are slight. Because of that and the lack of charisma of the two leads, it's a film you could easily skip. Not terrible but it could have been a lot better--especially the ending which was way too abrupt and difficult to believe.

This is another film noir (abliet one on a $1.99 budget) where a few familiar faces go down territory already done in "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice". It all surrounds the old lover (William Eythe) of Barbara Britton's who returns to discover that she's about to wed aging Nestor Paiva, a really old pal of his, the stereotypical Italian restaurant owner who talks and when he's not eating...and eating . Quite a bit of comedy is thrown in involving Britton's father Lloyd Corrigan (who has a gambling problem) and the nagging by mama Minna Gombell, wife of Walter Catlett who runs a boarding house near the oil fields where all of the workers stay, including Eythe. "Don't tell me to mind my own business because that's something I never do", Gombell says, indicating that she, not Catlett, wears the pants in the family. Even with Eythe constantly around, Britton pledges allegiance to Paiva until the day of the wedding, and, well, you know..

When you first start watching this movie, it comes off as a comedy, and Eythe is written to be a bit of a handsome buffoon, so it's easy to see why he's taken in by Britton. Paiva, Corrigan, Frank Jenks as the drunken cab driver (who passes out in the backseat when Eythe takes over) and Catlett add far too much forced buffoonery which gives this film the feeling of having a split personality. This has the feeling of a quick writing job of an early television anthology series episode with unbelievable characters and a situation as ridiculous as the wind pipe line which Corrigan actually tells his bride-to-be (or not to be). Is that the question? It's obvious that the writers were bored so they decided to mix comedy and noir.