Despite the plot containing a couple of noir elements, such as a wrongly accused man and a femme fatale, this movie fails completely to fit into the noir iconography.
It is usually tricky to define a "real" noir, since so many elements are involved, but this 1954 movie miss the bill in so many ways, that there is no doubt about it. Among the many disqualifying features:
- it arrives very late, at the tail end of the golden period of "noir"
- it totally lacks tension and drama and finally,
- it is shot in a rather pedestrian (at very least unimaginative) way.
No classic, sharp contrast, dark alleys, smoke and mirrors, just a straightforward tale told by day, of an honest bank teller (Sullivan) who gets conned out of 50.000$ in a simple and clever way and spends the rest of the movie trying to
1) clear his name
2) find another job, despite the persecution of the insurance detective
3) find the guilty party
He has a sweet, supportive wife and everybody (except the nasty detective) believes he is innocent.
Very slow moving, very B-movie and pretty boring.