I was not particularly fond of this picture. It's a rather sordid naturalistic drama about loneliness, a young man living with and hating his possessive mother seeking desperately a way out by going rounds at midnight as a peeping Tom, and sees Natalie Wood (18 years old) being kissed by a well-to-do young man in a very smashing car. He slugs the boy and steals the car with Natalie Wood in it, whom he brings to a place where no one ever can find them. The problem is that Natalie Wood's farther is Edmond O'Brien and a choleric policeman.
None of the characters are sympathetic, there is very little humanity in this, and Raymond Burr as his mother's victim is almost painful to look at - this was his last film before he became Perry Mason. It's a difficult part, he does what he can out of it with more or less embarrassing results, while Edmond O'Brien vents his choler on both his family and the police force. Of course it can only end one way.
It's almost a Theodore Dreiser kind of intrigue, with none of the characters being more than ordinary and with almost an enforced effort to make the thriller exciting, but Raymond Burr and Natalie Wood are very far from Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in Frank Tuttle's previous "THis Gun For Hire"..
None of the characters are sympathetic, there is very little humanity in this, and Raymond Burr as his mother's victim is almost painful to look at - this was his last film before he became Perry Mason. It's a difficult part, he does what he can out of it with more or less embarrassing results, while Edmond O'Brien vents his choler on both his family and the police force. Of course it can only end one way.
It's almost a Theodore Dreiser kind of intrigue, with none of the characters being more than ordinary and with almost an enforced effort to make the thriller exciting, but Raymond Burr and Natalie Wood are very far from Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in Frank Tuttle's previous "THis Gun For Hire"..