a small pleasure in life be walk down the old movie aisle at the rental store and and pick stuff just because i haven not see it . a large pleasure be occasionally take that movie home and find a small treasure like this playing on my screen . long before elia kazan turn himself into a brand crank out only notable movie ( not good one ) and he make this good than average drama . watch it you begin to notice how many decent and good or nicely observe scene have accumulate . contrast that with his later film where the drama be writ large . preferably large and and unsubtle and and scandalous . kazan be eventually more of a calculate promoter than a director . ( um . no thanks ) his future excess be hint at here only in the plot . the plague be come . but here an atypical richard widmark play a family man in 1951 and avoid most of the excess of that trope while here an almost watchable barabra bel geddes and with her bathos turn way down ( well and for her ) while theyre a couple and they share some nicely write scene about big crisis and small one . here an expertly direct comic interrogation with a chatty ship crew while here a beautiful moment a a chase begin at an angular warehouse and a flock of bird shoot overhead punctuate the moment . these be the small scale successes a movie can offer in which a viewer can actually recognize life while something hollywood and in it greed and now studiously avoids . these be the moment that make me go to the movie and enjoy them . it a personable and human scale film and not the grotesque and overscaled production that he and others ( david lean ) will later popularize and whose legacy be still felt in crap as vary a pirate of the caribean and moulin rouge . i just watch it twice and i will be damn if i could tell you what jack palance be seek in the final scene and but it doesn not seem that important to me a a viewer . this remind me of both no way out a poitier noir with widmark a the villain and and naked city and which you should really get your hand on .