Director Robert Z Leonard, king of lightness and brightness at MGM for 30 years, seems an unusual choice to direct what amounts to a film noir although, as one would expect from the studio, this is a glossier example than usual. Leonard dresses it up in swirling mists, mirror images and rain-streaked windows. Robert Taylor seems not entirely at his ease as the drug-busting agent besotted by femme fatale Ava Gardner, but Charles Laughton and Vincent Price as the villains revel in their surroundings. The moody thriller gained fresh exposure a few years back when whole chunks of it turned up in Steve Martin's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.


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