A thing I love about old Hollywood studio pictures is their ability and patience for telling a full narrative, giving the impression that we're taken, in a sense, further than an ordinary story arc. This is certainly the case in this movie which is, at best, a compelling mystery/melodrama and, if one is less lenient, The Bold and the Beautiful on acid. Ronald Reagan is alright. And it goes to some dark places. Unfortunately, it's often emotionally unrestrained.

ronald reagan really could act, and very very well, too. but he needed a good, and challenging, vehicle. this was it. this was going to make him an a-list star... but of course the war happened. terrific picture in every way.

Thoroughly bonkers americana, one of those movies that tries so hard for emotional resonance that it often gets adorably terrible. It has some of the style yet none of the slyness of the Sirk melodramas, nor the sledgehammer vulgarity and general awesomeness of Blue Velvet and The Naked Kiss, but that it can still be mentioned in the same sentence as those smalltown nightmare classics is a testament to its own silly yet surprisingly twisted charms.

drags on in some parts, and feels like the characters are just props to events happening, but a fairly good story

If there was one Ronald Reagan film to see - This is it!