Very well done noir - and one of the few featuring Burt Lancaster. If you liked this one, you'll love "Sweet Smell of Success"

Pure, classic film noir. A fatalistic tone, evocative high-contrast photography, tight script, good use of locations, and a gal who you're not sure is good or bad. Burt Lancaster is wonderful, here playing an average joe as opposed to his usual role as the man in control. I don't really care much for Dan Duryea, though. I always imagine Richard Widmark doing a better job in his parts. But he's really the only weak part of this otherwise excellent example of the genre.

Lancaster's performance is the only notable element to it. He almost makes a terribly passive and unsympathetic character "interesting."

Classic noir!

There's an unusual breadth to Siodmak's California noir, painting LA as a sundrenched land where every house holds a slew of unfulfilled dreams and every bar door hides a million disappointments. Lancaster's the perfect man to take us through it, his wounded eyes and chiselled jaw making him the paragon of blue-collar schmos, but the film itself takes him on a road that feels slightly manipulated, particularly the final scene - the endgame doesn't feel like it matches what came before.

I know, I know, the banal fatalism of the payroll heist is old news. Still, this is the only Dan Duryea movie I've seen where he doesn't bitch-slap the femme fatale (here played by the future Lily Munster) (though she does have Duryea-inflicted contusions on her back). If I read this flick correctly, lust and jealousy are the two most powerful motivating forces in the world: I won't argue, even despite the pat tragic ending.

Straightforward but very well executed noir. Even during the flashback part I was riveted.

Really good noir with standout performances, camera angles and a great script. Recommended.

Lust! Fate! Longing! Money! Betrayal! Danger! Doom! What more can you possibly want in a noir? Watch also for some great shots that draw no attention to themselves, such as a classic of YdC at the window. You can see how a woman like that can ruin a good man. But she also ruins a bad man -- now that's a femme fatale!