in the popular Blondie series of 28 films a decade earlier when he was cast as the postman chased by Ellen. Bradley Mora was a noted child actor on Broadway and had appeared in the 1950 filmed version of Annie Get Your Gun. Margalo Gillmore's successful acting career on Broadway stretched back to the late teens and Georgia Backus (the kindly neighbor gardening next door) had a small role in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane ten years before. Richard Anderson went on to a long and successful career as a supporting actor on US television. Former child star Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer (of Hal Roach's Our Gang comedy shorts) has a cameo appearance as a man repairing a hot rod car. Filming locations Some of the production involved location shooting on residential side streets near Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California. As seen in the film, the actual address of the main filming location was 116 North Oakhurst Dr., one block south of Beverly Drive, until the house was demolished in the mid-1950s and has since been replaced. Neighboring houses also seen in the film which surrounded the location on Oakhurst Drive and Plymouth Avenue are still standing. Reception According to MGM records the film earned $518,000 in the US and Canada and $250,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $174,000. Critical response When the film was released in 1951, The New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, wrote, "Here a simple situation is turned into a thoroughly chilling business by highlighting the most humdrum staples of the everyday American scene ... Cause for Alarm! proves more than anything else that superior writing, directing and acting - and some imagination - can make a little go a long way ... The suspense, under Director Tay Garnett, mounts steadily, almost unbearably, until a final plot twist so original that it's almost a swindle." Although Crowther criticized the casting of "newcomer" Bruce Cowling as Ranney, calling his performance "wooden", he had only praise for Young, writing "she does splendidly as the desperate housewife, avoiding all the pitfalls, even in her hysterical breakdown at the end." Time magazine characterized the film "as the year's first thriller with an honest quota of thrills. It pulls off the old Hitchcock trick of giving commonplace people, events and settings a sinister meaning, and it develops its simple, one-track idea with frightening logic." Time's review also noted the strong supporting