I watched this like two weeks ago and apparently never wrote a post about it. What the fuck, me?Candy (Jean Peters) is running an errand for her ex-boyfriend, Joey (Richard Kiley), when her purse is picked on the subway. Unfortunately for everyone, Candy was under surveillance from the cops. They quickly track down the pickpocket, Skip (Richard Widmark), but can't locate the missing microfilm. Skip is one strike away from life in prison and is determined not to get caught by anyone. The microfilm in question contains government secrets Joey is planning to hand over to the Communists. He tries to use Candy to get it back from Skip, but she quickly changes sides when she learns her ex is a dirty Red.
I'm sure this movie was very thrilling back in the day, but it was a little too "woman-beating" for my taste. Jean Peters gets slapped around pretty much the entire movie. Richard Widmark was going for that James Dean kind of sneering cool but ends up looking like an asshole no woman in her right mind would date, let alone risk life and limb to keep out of prison.
It is a very focused, fast-paced film that tells a story and sticks to it, with no rambling into side plots or unnecessary dialogue to pad out the run time. Frankly, that's kind of nice. Sometimes it's enough to just watch a story go from A to B in a straight line.
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