In the noir universe it's hard to picture Barbara Stanwyck with a mother; she'sthe perpetual orphan who has grown into the loneliness of femme fatalism. Here she moves in on anunsuspecting aunt whom she later is suspected of killing while stealing the family jewels. Wendell Corey asCleve Marshall is in the triply unenviable position of being the assistant D.A. assigned to the case,desperately in love with the accused, and being the mysterious "Mr. X" seen leaving the scene of the crime.The File on Thelma Jordan is vintage Stanwyck. But perhaps more interesting is the file on Cleve Marshall,a family man, needled by the in-laws and testy with the wife and kids, who nevertheless is tortured by hisdesire to leave them all behind for his new hobby-passion. Six years before Sirk's There's AlwaysTomorrow, here's a prototype for Fred MacMurray's Rex, the Walking Talking Robot. And as in that film,love's a double bind, at best: once out of the nest, there's no going back, but as Cleve sagely points out,"you can't divorce children." Since film noir generally doesn't bother with redemption or happyendings-unless you consider Cleve's walking off into the shadows, presumably home, a happy ending-there'sonly one moral to this story: Forget crime; it's love that doesn't pay.