This low-budget B film is a very early example of film noir, one thatshows the overt influence of German Expressionism in its dark, angled streetscenes, its mood of foggy dread, and in the presence of Peter Lorre himself asthe mysterious stranger pursued through those dreary streets. A reporter whosetestimony helps convict a taxi driver of a brutal murder has second thoughtsafter the man is sentenced to die. While his fiancée pursues a possiblereal killer, the reporter broods over his inaction in his small apartment, wherehis neighbor torments him and provokes thoughts of murder. An imaginatively donedream sequence in which he becomes the murderer effectively blurs nightmare andwaking world. But for all its European influence, it is Edward Hopper who isevoked by this claustrophobic corner where the familiar diner is a sad andvaguely sinister outpost for who knows what.