Clinically excellent noir drama.

Plot Summary - First Paragraph

Screenwriter Dixon Steele is very talented, he also drinks too much and is prone to outbreaks of shocking violence. Thus the studios are reluctant to hire him, but through sheer determination, his agent manages to get him a coveted writing assignment to adapt a popular novel. The main players in the proposed picture meet up at a restaurant to talk things out, but with Dixon being Dixon it all goes wrong and violence curtails the evening. Though not really keen to read the novel he is to adapt, Dixon accepts an invitation fro... read the rest.

Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame are on great form in this complex and intricate crime noir. He ("Dixon") is a down-on-his-luck writer who finds himself squarely in the eyes of the police, suspected of murder. Fortunately, and somewhat out of the blue, his neighbour turns up at the station and gives him a cast iron alibi. She ("Laurel") saw the victim leave his home, and he stayed put! Now at this point, we have no reason to disbelieve her, but as the story develops and the two become more intimately connected, we start to see certain flaws appear in both of their characters that starts to ma... read the rest.