Music by George Gershwin adds to the fatalistic mood of this superb film noir in which Ida Lupino is a singer whose doomed love for a restless pianist (Bruce Bennett) is enacted amid a postwar nocturnal world of honky-tonks and nightclubs. (The film is said to have inspired Martin Scorcese's New York, New York.) Robert E. Smith writes in a monograph on Raoul Walsh, “This magnificent film of great feeling is...marvelously atmospheric, particularly in the steamy songs and beautifully photographed and appreciated jam sessions.... The character of Petey, exceptionally portrayed by Ida Lupino, is in the great tradition of gutsy Walsh women. She's tough...she's been around, and she is quite familiar with the school of hard knocks. She is also generous, loving and impulsive.... (Her) honesty and directness...and the intelligent, thoughtful nature of the film's central relationship is the greatest, but far from only, strength of this film. This lower class milieu is peopled with a diverse set of characters all of whom are fully realized and individualized.”