Terrible movie.McCambridge was all but chewing on the curtains. She over acted just like she did in "Giant". Richard Todd looked good as usual but deserved a better script. Why was he up on a dangerous ledge supposedly hiding from the public after he had been found not guilty? Was he planning to camp up there? He had no tent, equipment or food for his horse. He did throw down a hot cigarette butt in the dry sage though. Luckily no fire was written into the script on that. Guess he wasn't a Boy Scout. Ruth Roman was pretty good but must have needed the paycheck badly. She drives off in an approaching thunder storm in a convertible with the top down. Not too bright, huh? Vidor made sure she showed us her boobs though. She goes to find Richard Todd and does a very poor job of acting like she is afraid of heights up on the cliff. All of a sudden she is in love with him. Give me a break! Zac Scott also over acts and is wearing. How come he is riding the same horse that Ruth was on at the dude ranch. Is it the county horse? He takes Ruth for a car ride acting very menacing, so of course we suspect he may be a killer. Not! He takes Ruth to see Todd and drives off. Later Todd takes Ruth home in the same car. Sadly Ruth marries Todd after knowing him for only a few days. I expect they divorced soon after.

While staying at a deserted dude ranch, a woman (Roman) gets involved with a man (Todd) suspected of murderApparently, the movie was intended to showcase rising stars Roman, Todd, and Mc Cambridge. Trouble is they're undone by a screenplay that can't make up its mind. Is it a whodunit, a noir, a "woman in danger", or a soap opera. Actually, it's a little of all four that turns out more like an overloaded dish of stew than a tasty soufflé. Too bad because it's a waste of some fine performers like Conroy, Givney, and especially Scott.There is one ridiculous scene almost worth the overlong 90-minutes. That's where Todd and Roman decide to have a romantic interlude perched atop a narrow cliff. Now, why a woman would choose a drop-off as a trysting spot with a suspected wife killer remains the movie's biggest mystery. In fact, the scene is almost a parody of every poorly staged soap opera on film. As an old movie fan, I wondered why I'd never heard of this film. Now I know.

This is a bit of a rum do and no mistake. For a start we have the solid mahogany Richard Todd leaving a trail of sawdust in his wake whilst Zachary Scott who can and does act Todd off the screen doesn't even appear until about reel #6 and is woefully under extended. Ruth Roman might have done really well as the femme lead - if she wasn't in the same movie as Mercedes McCambridge - things are tough all over, it would seem. Plot-wise it's as hokey as they come; we open with Todd on Death Row on account of a little matter of murdering his wife then, with no groundwork/back-story to help us he is awarded first a stay of execution and then a re-trial which leaves him a free man. Enter Ruth Roman, actress on vacation/convalescence who falls instantly into fascination with Todd. This leads nicely to the 'doubting' scene, did he REALLY do it, will he do the same to Me, until all is resolved neatly with the real killer not only being unmasked but also paying the ultimate price. This is noir-lite with two excellent performances from Scott and McCambridge, a solid one from Roman and Todd having a laugh.

Richard Todd sits on death row, waiting execution for his wife's murder. At the eleventh hour, a reprieve and new trial come through; he's acquitted, thanks to one holdout juror (Mercedes McCambridge). Released, he disappears into the west Texas desert. Enter Ruth Roman, a touring actress in search of the desert's restorative climate. An innkeeper and his wife become solicitous of her when she stops in a small town, and lend her a car to get to the dude ranch where she hopes to recuperate. En route (in a scene prescient of Janet Leigh's flight from Phoenix in Psycho), she gets lost in thunderstorms and takes refuge in an abandoned house -- where Todd is holed up. They size one another up and, next morning, she continues on to the dude ranch. Run by McCambridge and her emotionally disturbed young brother (Darryl Hickman), it has closed down, but they agree to put Roman up for a few days. But she seeks out Todd again, despite conflicting stories about his guilt or innocence. Director King Vidor and scriptwriter Lenore Coffee, having goaded Bette Davis to pull out all the stops in Beyond The Forest two years earlier, here take on another overloaded melodrama, with mixed results. We see too little of key events and rely instead on hearsay about other characters, who sometimes haven't yet been sufficiently established (and the one brief flashback is a mistake -- we need either more or none). And of eight major characters, two or even three (including Zachary Scott) prove superfluous. But the movie's biggest stumble lies in the casting of Richard Todd. Remembered if at all as the title character in that echt-1950s biopic of pious patriotism A Man Called Peter, here his stiff British accent and acting falsify the whole Southwestern milieu (Lightning Strikes Twice, like Desert Fury of five years earlier, evokes the new Sunbelt of money and leisure). Happily, the female characters fall on the plus side. Kathryn Givney shows spunk and intelligence as the strangely solicitous Mrs. Nolan. Ruth Roman, on evidence of this movie and Tomorrow Is Another Day, had more range and subtlety than she was let display in her best known role as Farley Granger's mannikin-like fiancee in Strangers on a Train. But the acting honors, inevitably, fall to McCambridge. Looking especially tomboyish, her face registers every thought and feeling that passes through her head; she's hyper-alert in her moods and responses. And so, as was her custom during her disappointingly thin screen career, she delivers the most memorable performance of the film.