Ex-GI Nick Blake gets involved in a scheme to fleece a rich, young widow, but finds himself falling for her, much to the displeasure of his racketeer cohorts.
Jean Negulesco continues his classic run of forties film noirs with this tale of a con artist who falls for the mark he is trying to fleece. The great John Garfield commands the screen as grifter Nick Blake, who returns to New York after the war, only to find heartache and betrayal. Heading west, Nick hooks up with fellow con men Pop (Walter Brennan) and Doc (George Coulouris), who need a Romeo to sweep recently widowed Gladys Halvorsen (Geraldine Fitzgerald) off her feet and out of her sizable inheritance. But it’s Nick who starts falling, and now that he wants out of the scam, will that fall turn into a dive? Or will Gladys pay the price for Nick’s change of heart? Garfield is his usual astonishing self, it’s Fitzgerald who proves a revelation, as she stabs at the heart of noir’s darkness by perfectly impersonating pure innocence. Faye Emerson plays the fatale, as Nick’s sultry ex. Five popcorns for a movie probably just as good as Casablanca.
