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"No Escape" is a B movie starring Lew Ayres, Sonny Tufts, and Marjorie Steele, set in San Francisco.

The best thing about this film is the look of the city, and all the '50s furnishings and men wearing hats. I know those features are in many films, but for some reason, I noticed them more in this.

Lew Ayres plays alcoholic pianist/singer/songwriter John Howard Tracy who works in a club now that his career as a successful songwriter has ended. One night, a man named James Griffith gives him some money, which he doesn't realize until Griffith has left. He goes to his apartment to return the money and finds the man dead. There's also a sketch of a woman named Pat (Marjorie Steele), who was in the club earlier that evening.

Tracy believes Pat to be the killer. Her boyfriend (Tufts) is a police officer who wants to frame Tracy for it and clear her. It goes from there, with Pat, unable to allow Tracy to be arrested for a crime he didn't commit, helps him while he's on the run.

This film was made just ten years after "So Proudly We Hail" so what the hay happened to Sonny Tufts? He looks like a madman and a good 20 years older here. I admit I was never crazy about him, and I found his performance one note.

Lew Ayres is very good, but the singing voice used seemed strange coming from him. Marjorie Steele only made a few films. She was an excellent stage actress and married - hello - Huntington Hartford, who got her into movies. But she retired to raise her family. She married twice more and today has commissions as a sculptor. A long way from "No Escape."

An ordinary noir with great shots of San Francisco.

Lew Ayres, drinking? An out-of-work drunk? Well, here he is. And he's good. The whole cast is excellent. I have heard of Sonny Tufts but this is the first time I can think of that I've ever seen him. I think this is not his native terrain. But he's just right as a tanned, slightly disreputable police officer.

Gertrude Michael plays the girl Ayres has been seeing, though she is not the female lead. I don't recognize that woman at all, though she looks like Lizbeth Scott. Michael was a bit of a scandal in "Murder at the Vanities." That movie was released almost 20 years before this one but she looks great here. She has the right feel for a noir actress, too. She's a bit under-the-weather, pretty but a little tarnished, and goodhearted.

The San Francisco locations are good. The music isn't my cup of tea. But it in no way sinks the movie. It's a real find. Watch for it.

Formerly successful songwriter John Tracey (Lew Ayres), now a down and out entertainer in a San Francisco dive bar, finds himself on the lam when he becomes the chief suspect in a murder investigation after one of the bar patrons, who had earlier humiliated Tracey in front of the girl he was trying to impress, is found dead in his apartment. As misfortune would have it, Tracey becomes enmeshed in a triangle of treachery and deceit with a police detective and his girlfriend (Sonny Tufts, Marjorie Steele). Deciding that proving his innocence is futile, Tracey attempts an 'escape' to Mexico.

The movie by-in-large is a lackadaisical effort. There isn't any component that elevates the film, beginning with the dubitable casting of Sonny Tufts as Marjorie Steele's love interest. Not sure who thought that to be a good idea.Ayres, a solid actor who wasn't necessarily a poor choice, comes off with a misplaced light comedy style in this otherwise dour crime drama. Even with the police on his tail, Ayres inexplicably sits down at the piano and cranks out a tune for a group of party goers. It continues on in an incongruent style with the direction, script, and cinematography, none of which create much in the way of tension, drama or atmosphere. Even what would normally be welcome San Francisco exterior shots are primarily stock footage. Then there is the voice-over narration. Whenever a film starts off like this viewers should be on high alert. As often as not, it's used not as a plot enhancement but as a device to cover up a multitude of film making sins and a way to cover large chunks of story line on the cheap.

'No Escape' isn't downright awful but the disinterested feel and the mishmash of wandering styles ultimately caters to nobody. The movie is just a series of blandly filmed scenes pieced together that will leave fans of the old crime programmers disappointed. So if it comes down to watching this or another movie, most people would do well choosing the other movie.

What a tepid little thriller this is, with LEW AYRES as a lounge lizard who sings for his supper, finds romance with a girl (MARJORIE STEELE) when both of them have to go on the lam for a crime they didn't commit. SONNY TUFTS is the detective on the case in what can only be described as a sketchily written role with almost no real substance. Miss Steele remains a nonentity throughout.

As a result, this is a poorly motivated crime tale using authentic San Francisco backgrounds for some local color but the B&W photography is notably ineffective in bringing the film to life.

Ayres seems to know he's coasting along in inferior material and only occasionally shows a flash of his talent that gives the tale a momentary lift from the ordinary. Tufts is solemn and humorless in a poorly written role as the detective who seems obsessed with keeping his girlfriend out of the case when it's discovered that she paid a visit to a murdered man.

The revelation of the murderer comes as no big surprise.

Summing up: Strictly a low-budget affair that never becomes the taut tale it strives to be, judging from the opening credits and music.

Lew Ayres, a decent actor, tries to save this turkey from execution, but not even a decent looking and acting Marjorie Steele can help him do that. That is because the story, dialogue and editing are so bad, that no one could have saved this film. Sonny Tufts was as wooden as Pinnochio in this film. There was absolutely no chemistry or believability about his supposed relationship with Steele. I kept thinking this role would have been perfect for Jack Lemmon (whom with little imagination, you can imagine that Ayres is acting just like). But the character is so corny (as is the leaden dialogue), that not even Jack Lemmon could have saved the film.