Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

evanston_dad A mildly engaging if unremarkable psychodrama about a man returning from WWII with a head injury who is accused of killing his wife. He's committed to a mental institution until he's able to regain control of his faculties. Once he does, he begins to suspect that he wasn't responsible for his wife's death after all and so begins a fight with the hospital's staff to convince them that he's not a raving nutjob and merely seeks the truth of what happened.We know he's not guilty, mostly because he's played by Robert Taylor, and the female doctor assigned to his case (played by the lovely Audrey Totter) begins to realize that too, right around the time she starts to fall in love with him. The film looks like a noir, but's its really just a piece of melodramatic hokum in noir clothing.Taylor and Totter make a rather stiff pairing. I've come to adore Totter, a rather unknown actress who seems to have made her mark mainly in "B" offerings, but I like her better as a hotsy-totsy spitfire, like the one she played in "Tension." Here she's asked to be straight-laced and professional, and she's not nearly as much fun. Herbert Marshall makes an effectively oily villain though, and he provides the movie the majority of whatever pizazz it has.Released shortly after WWII, the film more than anything is a laughable "warning" about what happens when men go off to war and the womenfolk stay behind. They get bored and set out to find (gasp!) jobs, but they of course eventually have affairs with their bosses and are murdered as punishment. Ah, how far we've come.....Grade: B-

bkoganbing Robert Taylor in High Wall finds himself accused of wife Dorothy Patrick's murder. A head injury resulting from service as a pilot in the China-Burma-India Theater has rendered him susceptible to blackouts. When Patrick is strangled Taylor is a prime suspect, especially after he's caught racing from the crime scene.It's a legal conundrum he's in. That head injury may just make him temporarily insane and Taylor's committed to a mental institution. There he meets psychiatrist Audrey Totter who's committed to rehabilitating him and loving him, not necessarily in that order in a given time in the film.Though the story tends to go into the melodramatic the cast, especially Taylor give fine performances. I'm sure Taylor's background in the Navy during World War II helped him appreciate the plight of returning veterans like himself. Look also for great performances by Herbert Marshall as Patrick's boss and Vince Barnett as a blackmailing janitor with arthritis.High Wall was Taylor's second film upon returning to MGM and it marked a step up from his first film Undercurrent. It still holds up well today.

David (Handlinghandel) This is probably Robert Taylor's first real film noir. He is revered in some circles for work a decade later such as Nicholas Ray's "Party Girl." I think he is excellent in "High Wall." He plays a decorated war vet who is accused of murder. Not just accused of murder but also but into a psychiatric hospital. Yikes. No fun at all. Except that the hypnotherapist assigned to his case is a beautiful woman who kind of likes him.Cast in the role of the psychiatrist is one of the great staples of film noir, Audrey Totter. She is as always good. Better than good. What's intriguing here is that she is cast not as a femme fatale but as a career woman who is in every sense on the right side of the angels and the law.Herbert Marshall turns in a superbly creepy performance also. I won't say much about his role other than that this is not really a whodunit. We know the answer to that very early.It's an unusual, brave movie. It has flaws but is nevertheless very good.

jxm4687 Robert Taylor grapples valiantly with an offbeat role that may be too much for his limited range. He has some good scenes as a World War II vet who sustained head injuries and whose return to civilian life is plagued by headaches--and worse, incarceration in a county mental hospital after he is suspected of murdering his wife. Did he do it? No way, this guy was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, loves his young son whom he hasn't seen for two years (while flying charter places in Burma to earn bucks for an ambitious wife), and really wants to take a research fellowship (for a measly $200 bucks a month. Besides, the movie tips its hand as to the murderer's true identity before Taylor even appears.That first glimpse of Taylor is a stunner--he's at the wheel of a car speeding out of control, an apparently dead blonde female (his wife as it turns out) at his side, his face full of madness and anguish. Unfortunately, the movie gets bogged down in dated (and superficial) psychiatry and trite glimpses of life in a mental ward. The relationship between Taylor and his psychiatrist (Audrey Totter) strains credibility, though it does push the plot forward to a fairly exciting, if not believable, conclusion. Totter is a disappointment, drab and too serious--her performance needs more of the sharp, tart personality you get from many of her other roles. Director Curtis Bernhardt gets in a few good film noir licks here. The rain during the extended climax is effective, and the scene where hospital staff visits Taylor's mother--only to find her dead--is extraordinary.Do a few terrific moments make this a worthwhile 98 minutes? Maybe.