Commies! Commies everywhere! Red-scare doesn't just colour this film's narrative, it's the central engine that provides all of the film's narrative hooks, and as such it's impossible to ignore. Yes Robert Ryan is good, as is the cinematography, and the general narrative works well enough, but none of it is anywhere good enough to make it worth sitting through the simplistic, cartoonish and hateful politics.

It's a shame this movie is clouded by so much Red Scare nonsense, because otherwise it's a top-notch thriller. A tight and compelling series of events, good score, and terrific stylized cinematography. This is very engaging stuff. It handles the "you can't escape your past" motif nicely. Also it's pretty intense for 1949, some really over-the-top kills. Great performances by Ryan, Gomez, Day, Carter and Talman. Still, when the paranoid political rhetoric does creep in, it's hard to overlook.