The story begins on a windy night in Los Angeles. Cheryl Draper gets up from bed to close her bedroom window, and lo and behold, she looks across the street at an apartment facing hers, only to see a man strangling a woman. She calls to notify what she had witnessed, little does she know she is dealing with a cunning man, Albert Richter, who will make her life miserable.<br /><br />This 1954 film was clearly a vehicle for an aging Barbara Stanwyck, even though the woman in the story must have been in her twenties. There are things that don't make much sense and holes in the plot, but director Roy Rowland and his writer, Charles Erskine, did what they could with a plot that goes nowhere and things are not properly explained. Nunnally Johnson cooperated with the screen treatment, but he gets no credit for it. We decided not to fight it and went along with this implausible story that shows why Barbara Stanwyck was one of the best in the business.<br /><br />The suave George Sanders plays the evil man that is trying to frame Cheryl by any means. Mr. Sanders was not at his best though, even as the man who's always a step ahead of our heroine. Gary Merrill is not totally convincing as the police detective Larry Matthews attracted to Cheryl. Jesse White plays his partner.<br /><br />The camera work of John Alton and the editing of Robert Swink make the film even better than it should have been under another team. Best sequence is the chase through the building under construction.