The beauty of Siodmak's film is how it objectively observes how a man acts with the spectre of death on his shoulder.

In luscious blacks and whites, this film noir thriller takes place in Little Italy, New York, and is a precursor to the cinema of Scorsese, with a touch of Hitchcock in its affectionate embrace of man's dark side.

The sequences on the rainy, neon-lit streets of downtown Manhattan are brought off with exhilarating flair and the two men's closeup confrontations have power and punch.

...a deliberately-paced drama that grows more and more compelling as it unfolds...