When Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons) convinces her wealthy father to hire Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) as the family chauffeur, she sees the means to her desires. Jessup soon realizes that her desires extend to murder. Yet nobody's wants are simple in this moody, atmospheric noir. Preminger has been described as treating women sympathetically, drawn to the depth of their feelings. Diane's passions for both her father and Jessup are obsessive and overblown, but not surprising. She is too familiar an icon, the sexualized woman who brings both pleasure and pain-angel of desire, angel of death. Not unlike the obsessive femme fatales that are being revived today, she is frightening-and exciting-because she refuses the strictures of proper (repressed) behavior. While her destructive actions (self- and otherwise) can be seen as an exaggerated extension of her "training," the drive with which she carries them out remains startling.-Kathy Geritz