otto preminger dana andrews cycle of film noirs be among the ( largely ) unsung jewel of the genre . because they lack paranoia and misogyny or hysteria and they may have seem out of place at the time and but the clear eyed imagery and the complex play with identity and masculinity and representation and the subversion of traditional psychological tenet and the austere and geometrical style all seem startlingly modern today and and very similar to melville . the lucid irony of this film be so loaded and brutal and ironic that the happy end be one of the cruellest in hollywood history . brilliant on the level of entertain thriller a well and tense and and pack with double edge dialogue .