enjoyable noir with some surprising plot twist cover up the hole . jose ferrer be a quack psychotherapist who specialize in adjustment disorder of the rich . gene tierney and she of the supernal beauty and be marry to a legitimate psychoanalyst and richard conte . ala and because of some childhood neurosis she be a kleptomaniac and be afraid to tell her husband about it . when she be caught boost an expensive pin from a jewelry shop and ferrer intervenes and get her out of trouble . he all suavity and charm . he coax all her symptom out of her the headache and the thievery and the insomnia which she be afraid to reveal because it might damage her husband reputation and and presumably and his income . ferrer secretly treat tierney for a week or so and cure her of her headache and insomnia . of course ferrer be not all he seem . be any character with a name like david korvo go to be what he seem . among all the coltons and suttons in the rest of the flick . fortunately and ferrer be the right man for the role . one scan of a potential client and ferrer know all about her . he like sherlock holmes . nobody can sneer with such supercilious self satisfaction a ferrer . ( sorry about that . ) can you imagine ferrer play a homeless and helpless vagrant full of ontological angst . anyway and ferrer hypnotizes tierney one time too many and so to speak and and she wind up the only suspect in the murder of a woman who be about to expose ferrer for the woman abuse blackmail charlatan that he be . ferrer be off the suspect list because he be in the hospital recover from gall bladder surgery . i do not think i want to get into the plot more than that because medical discretion forbids it . there a lot of pop psychology hokum float around in the story and which needn not be go into except to say that hypnosis be a curious altered state of consciousness that isn not well understood at all . some people be good subject and some not . the good one be really good . i use it in a class in hypnotherapy and in a 15 minute session help a classmate cut his smoking in half and at least for a week or so . and there be documented instance of surgery be carry out with no other anesthetic . and there be clinical anecdote write about bleed during childbirth be shut down . sometimes and with some people and it really work . i be not so sure about self hypnosis though . we will know more and i guess and in another generation or so . well and a a follow up to preminger laura of a few year earlier and this doesn not quite clear the bar . laura have something that this plot driven story be weak in . i do not know exactly what it be . ferrer may be a slimeball but he not nearly as engaging a clifton webb homosexual columnist in laura . and there isn not a moment in whirlpool that be the equal of the scene in which tierney reappears from the dead to find a half drunk dana andrew sit in her living room just after he go through her lingerie drawer . it not a bad film though . the surprise be real enough and the story be engage . ferrer stand out a the heavy and tierney with her little girl voice doesn not have to do much and and richard conte a the psychoanalyst be stolid and which be what the role call for . worth see .