Farley Granger, something of a human noir icon, was never more oppressed by fate than in Edge of Doom, in which he portrays a frustrated slum kid who finally cracks when he can't afford a fine funeral for his mom, and bludgeons the parish priest to death. The film is something of an anomaly--a film noir in a Catholic milieu, in which the anti-hero is exonerated by the Father and, by extension, God--but everything else in the film, written by Philip Yordan and photographed by Harry Stradling, does its best to push an attitude of utter pessimism. Visually, it is a lesson in film noir aesthetics, shot with an extreme verticality that makes Poverty Row look tiny, helpless, and not particularly important.