the charm of otto preminger grandiose and visionary film noir be that it have ambiguous intention and betray the gloomy essence of the central character and who be still vex by living in the shadow of his criminal father . dana andrew drive and vindictive cop be show a an outsider and irrational and destructive and who maybe can change because he might have find a good woman to look after him . the troubled man reclaim himself with his own tangled impression of rectitude . the distress mood permanently circuit into the latter half of the story by screenwriter ben hecht reverberate in andrew tense performance a preminger saturate the film in a relevantly prosaic substance of style . we do not just see and hear the city at night while we feel it because preminger let u see and hear even the most peripheral and distant factor of it . dana andrews furnishes a complex character unfold through his streak of violence and the hatred that always infest him . a the plot develop and he be secretly entangle in situational snare and yet he be renew by the outward act that can be see in the vintage noir protagonist visceral facial expression before he execute them . this reflection of a specific phase in the development of the genre be an engrossing and feral and shady film noir that be set in the double deal climate of the underworld and where the hero be so estranged that he be always swell with rage and and even though he lose his rational resistance and occupational principle and and ethical limit and he still a good cop . preminger just wink at tell a social conscience drama about a corrupted community within the sprawling cityscape and rather keep the thriller rid on andrew shoulder a an existential journey of personal ramification about a man with an oedipal fixation who be become disconnect though with the ever shrink influence of the law on his side and an undying perception of right and wrong . the production company in the early 1950s pussed out on the social problem picture and and rather make low budget and low risk thriller such a this and apparently in an attempt to evade the conniption of conservative critic and social busybody . but there be an expressionistic matter of factness to preminger inimitable approach . he inject each scene with a sense of everyday drama a a backdrop for the plot . each support character must pull their own weight by do something interesting and but none of them be cartoon or depress comic relief . to him and every character think theyre the star and a per the straight from the shoulder self assertion of karl malden a a missionary police inspector and a veteran waitress at a lunch counter . it be those who be the star andrew and gene tierney and both anguish by their futile attempt to subdue their emotional intensity who do not want to be .