Virtually ignored on its release, this low-budget B film isnow recognized as a very early example of film noir, one that shows theovert influence of German Expressionism in its dark, angled streetscenes, its mood of foggy dread, and in the presence of Peter Lorrehimself as the mysterious stranger pursued through those dreary streets.The story is decidedly Dostoevskian (the director in any case wasRussian): a reporter whose testimony helps convict a taxi-driver of abrutal murder has second thoughts after the man is sentenced to die.While his fiancée, convinced of the man's innocence, pursues apossible real killer, the reporter broods over his inaction in his smallapartment, where his next-door neighbor torments him and provokesthoughts of murder. An imaginatively done dream sequence in which hebecomes the murderer effectively blurs nightmare and waking-world. Butfor all its European influence, it is Edward Hopper who is evoked bythis claustrophobic corner of urban America where the familiar cornerdiner is a sad and vaguely sinister outpost for who knows what.