Ivers Roman Bohnen as Mr. O'Neil Darryl Hickman as Sam Masterson as a Child Janis Wilson as Martha Ivers as a Child Ann Doran as Bobbi St. John Frank Orth as Hotel Clerk James Flavin as Detective #1 Mickey Kuhn as Walter O'Neil as a Child Charles D. Brown as McCarthy Blake Edwards as Sailor (uncredited) Robert Homans as Gallagher (uncredited) Gladden James as John (uncredited) Cast notes This film marked Kirk Douglas' screen debut. Producer Hal B. Wallis was on his way to New York to look for new talent when he ran into Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who suggested that he go to a play which featured Bacall's old drama school classmate, Issur Demsky, who later took the name Kirk Douglas. Douglas later wrote in his autobiography that Van Heflin was very helpful to him in his first time on a film set. In contrast to his later, tougher roles, Douglas plays an alcoholic weakling. According to Tony Thomas, "it assured Douglas his future in films". Future film director and producer Blake Edwards had an uncredited bit part as a sailor who hitches a ride with Sam. Production Director Lewis Milestone left the film for several days in sympathy with a set decorators' strike which was going on at the time. In his absence, the film was directed by Byron Haskin, who did not receive screen credit. Stanwyck had considerable influence on how she was lit, and was not shy about putting her fellow actors on notice that she did not like to be upstaged. When she saw the coin trick Heflin had learned—at Milestone's suggestion, to show that Heflin's character was a professional gambler—she informed him he should make sure he did not do it during any of her important lines, since she had a bit of business that would upstage him, if she had to. With that she raised her skirt high and adjusted her garter. Heflin is seen rolling a coin on his fingers several times in several scenes. Kirk Douglas later wrote that Stanwyck was indifferent to him at first, until at one point she focused on him and told him, "Hey, you're pretty good." Douglas, smarting from having been ignored previously, replied, "Too late, Miss Stanwyck," but the two got on well after that. Six months after the film's release, Milestone gave an interview in which he said he would never work