Danger Signal

... actually she (Rosemary Decamp as Dr. Jane Silla) is a psychiatrist.

The film opens on a man (Zachary Scott as Ronnie Mason) looking at the inscription on a woman's wedding ring. The woman is lying in bed, dead although she appears to be sleeping. Ronnie grabs most but not all of a large wad of cash from her purse and disappears down the fire escape as the landlady is banging loudly on the door. She has just found out the two are not married. The woman left her husband for this man two months ago, but she has died by poison and left a suicide note. The woman's husband vehemently disagrees that his wife would kill herself and demands justice. So all of this just establishes that Ronnie is a bad guy to the audience. We know who the villain is from the outset.

Ronnie really is a puzzle. He apparently is a writer of short stories and a semi successful one. The woman he killed did not have so much money that she would be worth jail or the chair. And Hilda, a workaholic stenographer and daughter of his next landlady, is not wealthy either. What is the point of him winning her over? But that he does. And then Hilda's younger sister returns from a convalescent home. And Ronnie turns on a dime and goes after her, mainly because he realizes she will come into some money when she marries. Because he and Hilda were so quiet about their romance at his insistence, he is able to lie and say that she pursued him and that there was never anything between them.

So what is up with this guy?That is where De Camp's Dr. Silla comes in. She explains - or tries to explain - Ronnie's psyche to Hilda who is now genuinely concerned for her sister's welfare if she marries Ronnie. Hilda talks about killing him. Dr. Silla talks "production code speak" as to how that would damage Hilda as much as Ronnie. I'm not so sure of that doc.

Throw in a charmingly awkward chemist with a crush on Hilda played by Bruce Bennett, a guy waiting for his draft notice, his voice to change, and for Hilda's younger sister to notice he is alive played by Richard Erdman,, plus that pesky husband of the first victim in this film, and you have to wonder - how exactly is Ronnie going to get his? Will he get his? Watch and find out.

I like this noir because it tries to introduce a psychological angle into Ronnie's behavior. Plus for a film made in 1945 it does not try and pretend that the war is just gone. It is part of the plot. And I like how Rosemary DeCamp turns what is basically a plot device into a full fledged character with a charming continental accent. And poor Zachary Scott. He looked like a villain and he played them so suavely that he was forever typecast.

There were really no big names in this one, but it is a worthwhile entry in the noir genre demonstrating how one normal looking sociopath can upturn the lives of so many average people, not by appealing to their greed as is true in so many noirs, but by appealing to their desire to be loved and understood.

I won't summarize the plot,as several others have done this already. Just two things: Yes,the ending seemed tacked on,like the writer couldn't think of a way to end the picture and just threw this together at the last minute. The other thing is that several posters are under the impression that Zachary Scott did Mildred Pierce first. No,this film came first,two years before Mildred Pierce,in fact. The Monty Berrigon character Scott played in that film is almost a carbon copy of the guy in this film,not the other way around. In fact,I wonder why Scott would agree to play the MP character since it was so close to this one. Maybe he wanted to work with Joan Crawford or maybe ,under the terms of his contract, he had to play anything they told him to. At any rate,he played these sleazy scoundrels well

A good suspense tale with the talented Zachary Scott as a charmingly oily character. Faye Emerson is quite good, too. A shame she didn't get more great movie roles. Rosemary DeCamp does a splendid accent. I had to check her bio to confirm she wasn't really foreign. My only complaint is the lame ending. It didn't address the dramatic climax, robbing the characters of their understandable need to process it. For a script which expends some energy on psychological analysis, I found this disappointing.

Killer Zachary Scott (Ronnie) romances women, kills them and takes their money. So watch out Faye Emerson (Hilda) and sister Mona Freeman (Anne) because he's just moved in to the spare room of your house. And you are both in his sights.

Scott is excellent as the psychopath who has no empathy or feelings towards his victims. He is charming and totally evil. All the cast do well but Mona Freeman's personality changes are a bit unbelievable and the shy, indecisiveness of doctor Bruce Bennett (Andrew) is pretty annoying.

The film keeps going without any lulls up until its sudden ending which could have better. Up to that point, though, it's good and Scott seems to be in complete control of his scheme……until Emerson fights back with some psychological torture of her own.

This is a must for film noir fans, and it deserves to be better known. If it had more of an A-list cast, it would probably be considered a classic.

At the very beginning it resembles Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." Zachary Scott plays a secretive writer on the run from the law, though for a while it's not clear whether he's really a criminal. Under an assumed name, he charms his way into a household of women.

From then on, the plot is original -- consistently clever but never confusing. Male treachery and female jealousy play their parts, and just when one character's motives become clear, you have to start wondering what another character is up to. If you guess how it all turns out, you're a psychic.

There is one little detail that's handled sloppily, but it comes early and is excusable. All in all, this is what a mystery should be.