Conflict

Routine film noir with Bogart as a murderer disoriented by the mounting evidence that his victim is still alive. Greenstreet, exuding detached benignity, hovers over Bogart's dilemma and has the line which ought to pin down the theme - 'Sometimes a thought can be like a malignant disease and eat away the will power' - but somehow Bernhardt never realises that promise. The dominant irony of the first reel, in which Bogart and wife Hobart are publicly 'the happiest of couples' and privately tearing each other apart (a dichotomy bridged by their theme tune, 'Jealousy'), is dispelled by the patchy development later. Alexis Smith's role remains unfocused, while Bogart suffers defiantly and spits out the odd characteristic line. Robert Siodmak had a hand in the story.