AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki Here is another film (similar to 1939's Trunk Crime) which, in the hands of Hitchcock, could have been much better: and old guy on a train relays to a passenger the story of a man who killed his girlfriend in the darkness on a train platform, taking refuge in a boarding house, only to find that a small boy who witnessed the killing also lives in the same boarding house. The kid can't quite place where he knows the guy from, and the killer obviously will do anything to keep the kid quite.Effective lighting and shadowy look to the film help overall, but I can't figure out why the bizarre framing device of having the story being seemingly relayed in flashback by the old guy, only to actually begin at the end of the film? The old man says that he "had a disagreement with a watchmaker" and has "boycotted time-pieces ever since", so, does that somehow give him the ability to see into the future? Or was this just a badly planned gimmick film? The little kid is effective in some scenes, and silly in others, especially with that stupid hat with the propeller on it; a better actor in that particular role would have helped considerably.

classicsoncall As I watch Charles Russell in the lead role, I get the nagging feeling that I've seen him before, but I know I haven't. With a limited film career spanning six years, I begin to wonder if he could have gone on to bigger and better things if he hadn't been so one dimensional as he appears here. Then it hits me, the part could have just as well gone to someone like John Payne or Rory Calhoun, virtual Russell look-alikes who were on the way up around the same time who eventually wound up in classic TV Westerns (Payne in 'The Restless Gun' and Calhoun in 'The Texan').As film noir, this one works pretty well if you get beyond some of the quirks in the plot. Russell's character, Harold Dunlap, seems hell bent on dispatching a young teenage witness (Dale Belding) to the inadvertent murder of his fiancée. The cover of night and out of the way location provide the perfect opportunity, but Dunlap misses the chance when the kid turns around and looks at him. Now I ask you, if you're determined to kill a kid with a crowbar, why would his seeing you make any difference?The follow up to all this is that Dunlap and Mike the Kid play a game of second guessing each other's identity and real intentions, and Dunlap winds up looking like a sap by the time it's all over. In essence, he winds up being the most inept hoodlum ever, to the point where he doesn't even care if he gets caught or not. And by the way, is he blind? Mary Beth Hughes goes from coyly demure to smoking hot 'come on boy', and Dunlap just brushes her off. Now I know she was never meant for anything but trouble in this picture, so you think Dunlap would have obliged. But even with the criticism, this was an interesting flick that had one of those neat hooks that happened to bookend the story. You should have seen the ending coming, and because you didn't, it didn't leave you feeling blind sided like the 1953 film "The Limping Man". Just don't get too caught up in the way the story arc progresses, or you'll wind up going loop-de-loop well after it's over.

Tom Willett (yonhope) This black and white movie has many fine moments but it does not have the top box office cast which could have made it a classic. It has a small town feel similar to Picnic with William Holden but it did not have William Holden and Kim Novak.The lead actors do their scenes well. The guy and gal just aren't quite right for a feature film. The female lead is beautiful enough to be in any movie in any role. She also was great in her scenes. But this movie just needs a Bogart and Bacall or Tracy and Hepburn or Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. The rest of the cast is fine.The boy who plays Mike is the best part of this movie. There is a bedroom scene with him and the villain which rings so true for its era. Watch as the male lead plays some word games in the dark with the kid. Innocence and terror side by side. It was common in the 1940s to have two guys sleeping in the same bed in movies, especially in comedies, but also in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. In this movie the guys sleep together in one room but with separate beds.This is a very good movie but it could have been great. This might make a good double bill with Picnic or Strangers on a Train or The Lady Vanishes.I hope Dale Belding (Mike) is still alive and well.

J. Spurlin A man (Charles Russell) accidentally kills his fiancée as he exits a train. Just as the train pulls out, he drops her body on the rear platform. No one saw him do it, but someone does see him at the otherwise deserted station: a mischievous, freckle-faced boy. Later, he's walking along a road when the town's newspaper editor stops and gives him a lift. The editor tells his passenger that a flood has washed out the bridge. For now, there's no way out of town, so he takes the stranger to a boarding house. Fate decrees that of all houses, this is the one where the boy lives. The boy thinks he recognizes the new boarder. The new boarder thinks it's time to get rid of the boy. And a sexy blonde (Mary Beth Hughes) living at the house thinks it's time to run off with a man she knows is a murderer."Inner Sanctum" is a stand-alone film based on the radio series of the same name. That program was also the basis for Universal's godawful movie series, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., that had ended just two years before. "Inner Sanctum" is nothing like those films and much better. The story is efficiently told with sharp dialogue, an excellent framing device and good performances. Everyone involved worked well within the constraints of a small budget; and the movie remains an entertaining thriller that fits snugly into the latterly-invented genre of Film Noir.