i must have seen a different film!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I generally like Loretta Young, but unfortunately this script requires such dumb behavior on her part, that I found myself getting angry with her stupidity rather than the clumsy machinations of the villain.Barry Sullivan is largely wasted in this one note performance, he was so good in Tension.Irving Bacon adds some much-needed comic relief as a whiny postman who talks the ears off everyone on his route.A similar story and situation has been brought to life far more enjoyably in Sorry, Wrong Number and Gaslight which I highly recommend.Although the film is only 74 minutes long, it still seems to drag. There are some drawn-out scenes with a neighbor kid on a trike who I guess was supposed to add a cuteness factor, but didn't really advance the plot at all.

Loretta Young plays a woman whose husband (Barry Sullivan) has a heart condition and is bed-ridden. She doesn't realize it but her husband believes she is having an affair with his doctor and longtime friend (Bruce Cowling). He mails a letter to the district attorney, telling a wild story about how the two are plotting to kill him. He then tells Young what he has done and promptly keels over of a heart attack! Young is panic-stricken and desperate to get that letter back before she is wrongly accused of her husband's murder.I'm not sure why this movie has always stood out to me but it has. I enjoy it tremendously. Loretta Young is terrific, especially when she starts to freak out. But even before that she has this nervous quality about her performance that makes the later panic seem in keeping with her character. Some have criticized her character as being unduly stupid in order to service the plot. I don't feel this is true. Everything hits her quickly. Within a matter of minutes she hears what her husband planned and then he dies, so naturally she wouldn't be thinking clearly. Barry Sullivan gives one of his best performances as the crazy husband. Contrary to what some reviews have stated, he did not exhibit a sudden change of behavior from nice guy to psycho nor was his psychosis brought on by his heart medicine. The film shows in flashbacks that this man is self-serving, possessive, and manipulative. Further, Sullivan tells Young a story from his childhood that paints a clear picture that he has always been disturbed.This is a wonderfully subversive suspense film. Here you have this crazy story going on in a typical suburban American home during a decade in which the idyllic picture of American suburbia was born. My advice is to pay full attention to the film for answers to many of the nitpickers' complaints. I can think of far more respected and beloved films with plots that are full of more contrivances than anything in this. In my opinion, this is a real treat that builds slowly then grips you and doesn't let go. One of my favorite films of the '50s.

As the 1950's started to Unfold many Folks, who could Afford it, moved to the Suburbs and caught in the Tailwind was Film-Noir. For Better or Worse, mostly Worse, it became the Death Noll of the Genre, or at least a Transformation, or to be more Cynical, a Devolution. This Reminds of an Alfred Hitchcock Hour Episode. MGM, by this Time, had Relegated its B-Unit to these types of "Noirs" that RKO and WB were Proudly Producing for Years as MGM Snubbed the Trend as Beneath Them.But here it is, a Vehicle for the Fading Beauty and Star Power of the Screen Queen Loretta Young. It is a Little Film in all Respects. Shot on the Cheap in a Couple of Weeks it manages to Create a Pretty Good Suspenser. Miss Young Looks Ridiculous pushing a Vacuum Cleaner but Quickly Collapses and gets Sucked Under from the Stress of an Invalid Husband Slowly Losing His Mind. She Completely Loses it and comes Unglued, Panics, and with Great Anxiety tries Unsuccessfully to Retrieve an Incriminating Letter. It all Ends with a Twist Worthy of Hitchcock Hour, Twilight Zone, Thriller, and E.C. Comics that became so Popular.Just Wondering, since this was a Movie and TV was an Emerging Competition, was it Intentional to have a "Little Toy TV" as a Symbol for a Little Novelty Unworthy of Cinema? It's so Tiny and Insignificant. Ironically this Film was Exactly the Type of Production that Television would Adapt and Prophet on Forever.

I noticed the back and forth about whether this is or is not film noir. I have to say, I'm actually shocked by the people who insist that it's noir. I can't imagine anyone diagnosing this film as noir, which has a few indistinguishable characteristics - notably being primarily SHOT AT NIGHT, a certain tone of CYNICISM, usually a FEMME FATALE and HAPLESS MALE, SHADOWS and LOW CAMERA ANGLE. There's more, but those are the basics. This film has none of that - it's just a suspense film, plain and simple.My problem is that I am not a fan of Loretta Young. She had a limited range, always needing to be "the Lady." She's beautiful, was convincing within her range, and I liked her in certain films, like "The Bishop's Wife."Here, she's not as strong as Barbara Stanwyck might have been, but this script would have been an inferior copy of "Sorry, Wrong Number," of a woman who is in distress for 90 minutes, and Stanwyck had better taste in material. And I think Judy Garland would have been a little twitchy and neurotic for this.Anyway, it's a bit implausible, since you feel that Loretta should have slightly calmed down and assessed that she was innocent, so perhaps all that angst and trouble were unnecessary.By the conclusion, it felt like an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," where the whole show leads up to the surprise ironic "amusing" twist at the end.I can't imagine how her real-life husband Tom Lewis reacted to her suing him to be cast in the film. I don't know a marriage that could survive that.