Half-baked film noir with many a nod toward Hitchcock’s SPELLBOUND/’45 (itself on the undercooked side): Freudian nightmares as artsy cinematic dreams; a violent madman roaming sanatorium halls; and a top shrink with murder on his C.V. Made on the cheap by director Alfred Werker, with co-lensers Joseph MacDonald & Glen MacWilliams using legerdemain camera tricks to keep the general silliness at bay. In truth, they generate more suspense having their unusually tall cast work on sets with improbably low ceilings & tight door frames. Look out! You’ll bump your head! The plot has returning war vet/POW Frank Latimore finding wife Anabel Shaw in catatonic shock after witnessing a murder in the neighboring flat. Fortunately, there’s a psychiatrist right in the building, Vincent Price. Unfortunately, he’s the murderer. Yikes! Now, he and his mistress (evil Lynn Bari who apparently borrowed Claudette Colbert’s stylists) are planning to drive the girl mad to keep her quiet, even kill her if necessary. Lots of fun in demented low-budget fashion (some of the laughs must have been intentional), with top-billed Price in clover and Bari, often something of an also-ran choice, a standout as an amoral villain.
DOUBLE-BILL: Naturally, SPELLBOUND, though it hardly lives up to the hype. OR: See director Werker on better form in a pair of the docu-flavored dramas favored @ 20th/Fox: HE WALKED BY NIGHT/’48; LOST BOUNDARIES/’49. (both covered below)
LINK: Here’s another Public Domain pic, long out on various subfusc DVDs, now available as an excellent youtube freebie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrmhiS5L2Rk
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