This bizarrely under-rated film noir is as gripping a film as The Big
Heat, and it opens with superb power as a woman's humiliation by her
boyfriend propels her to an indiscretion which ends in attempted rape
and murder in self-defence. The film's true subject, however, is
Lang's most fertile concern: means of communication, and the
insidious way in which they are shaped into a multi-faceted trap for the
heroine. An implausible and unnecessary happy ending concludes
things, but the movie's point has already been made: its disturbing
insights into desire and exploitation are no less painful.
