There's no attempt at sugarcoating a happy ending, and yarn moves towards its inevitable, tragic climax without compromise.

Passionate, lyrical, and imaginative, it's a remarkably assured debut, from the astonishing opening helicopter shot that follows the escaped convicts' car to freedom, to the final, inexorably tragic climax.

Ray's plaintive artistry lends this weepy noir a melancholic beauty.

Lacks the expected film noir curlicues and chiaroscuro, but the amusing coded queer subtext -- that Granger is too nelly and O'Donnell too butch to make it as a nuclear family -- keeps it moving.