Let me start by saying that I am, and have always been, a fan of the villains. When I first started learning how to use Macromedia Dreamweaver, my test site was a shrine to the various villains in the various stories I've written throughout my life. The villain remains to this day the best way to advance the dramatic tension of the plot, and I hold a deep respect for them because of it.

That being said, this is possibly the first movie that has made me root for the hero to win, while still having a truly good (so to speak) villain. Gregory Peck's caring and responsible family man plays perfectly against Robert Mitchum's sleazy, cigar-smoking, prostitute-beating rapist. (It would've been nice if Mitchum could've done something like this seven years earlier in Night of the Hunter, but I'll gripe about that in its own review.) Peck plays one of those heroes that even a villain nut like me can't help but root for, and Mitchum couldn't have been a more despicably good villain if he tried.

Nearly everything else about this film is perfectly executed. The suspense, the relations between the characters, the script, the believability of the situations and actions, and of course, the acting...with one rather glaring exception. Where did Lori Martin learn to act? Talk about annoying! No, she wasn't bad enough that I didn't care about what would happen to her character, but it would've been nice if she had taken a few acting classes before showing up on set. I probably could've given a more believable performance as Gregory Peck's daughter when I was that age. And when I was that age, Gregory Peck was eighty-six.

But in the end, the movie came through. If you ask me, this, not Night of the Hunter, is the film Robert Mitchum should be remembered for. (And before anyone (because I know there are some of you out there) starts berating me about only saying that because I was disappointed by Night of the Hunter, I actually saw this movie first.)