In lighting prison scenes, John Alton recommends in his book Painting with Light, “the stronger the light outside, the gloomier is the inside.” The inverse, however, is not necessarily true, as Dennis O'Keefe's Joe Sullivan finds when he breaks out of jail and takes his social worker (Marsha Hunt) as a hostage. Naturally, Miss Law and Order falls for him, big. But Joe is no one else's idea of a hero, least of all Pat, the moll who's been waiting for him “all my life”: Claire Trevor's bitter voiceover narration (with a hint of Madeleine Kahn) is a classic. For her, the best lines. For her, the raw deal. This is iconic California noir, with set pieces like “Grimshaw's Taxidermy” in Crescent City; a baroque Barbary Coast apartment where Raymond Burr fetishizes his cigarette lighter like George Raft did his coin; and a climax on a fog-socked San Francisco pier, as a young boy surreally roller-skates by, a clock becomes a face, and time stops.