this story and base on a novel by california author dan totheroh and could have fail miserably if it have not be cast correctly and since the entire tale hang on the believability of the girl play by ida lupino . jean negulesco do his usual excellent job of direct . but direct would not have suffice and if the entire film have not be suffuse with the mysterious lupino essence . many word come to mind to try to describe what she do on screen and word like integrity and intelligence and perceptive and authentic and genuine and pontaneous and uncontrived . but how do one define magic . lupino be the traumatised daughter of two quarrelling and cantankerous people who live on different floor of a tumbledown farmhouse in a deep and isolated valley in the north of california . the mother and father have not go upstairs or downstairs to see one another for seven year and and lupino be their only go between and which have reduce her to extreme shyness and withdrawal and and stutter . fay bainter play the mother very well and with her expressive eye the size of saucer and that be and saucer which be always slide around all over the place and a if on shipboard in a storm . the profound isolation of the family be shortly to come to an end and because one of those california coastal highway be be construct and with much dynamiting and landslide and and convict labour with pick on the obdurate rock . the road will go through their front meadow and and they will actually see people . the love starve and pathetic lupino fall for an escaped convict and brilliantly portray by dane clark . lupino father be play by henry hull and who be chiefly remember for appear in the fountainhead ( 1949 ) and two year later . here he have little scope to be memorable . this be a very harrowing and move tale of desperation and both emotional and of the life and death variety and a lupino and clark struggle to prevent his be shot or capture . it be a doomed love story between two young people who be at the very extreme of life . the film be superb in every way and and qualifies a a minor classic . if only negulesco have stay with this kind of intense dramatic film instead of waste his time with such late thing a the appalling and revolt cream puff and daddy long leg ( 1955 ) .