Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

clanciai Brilliant intrigue getting you on a wayward journey through webs and jams of complications, especially concerning relationships, the outcome of which is impossible to guess - you can't even guess what's round the corner.The film opens brilliantly with a regular burglary getting into trouble with hard knocks completely ruining a well furnished drugstore, and that's only the introduction. The curious thing is, that although nothing much happens for the next 30 minutes or so, as the two policemen set out an an impossible quest in search of a haystack to begin with in order to be able to start looking for a needle in it, which enterprise involves some boring routine, which not even horse races can brighten up, the film is tremendously exciting all the way, simply because you can't possibly know what to expect. Then Ida Lupino suddenly is helpful.She is the star of the film, she always makes interesting characters of more than one shade and deep shadows into it, and here she really (unintentionally) gets her policeman involved in a serious fall.Don Siegel was a genius comparable with Ben Hecht for poignant dialogue and smashing stories. When the plot finally gets going here, things really happen unexpectedly, and mystery is added to the complications, until everything is resolved in the end with a wonderful sens morale, for a gratifying release out of the unbearable excitement.One mystery remains though after things get settled down. You'll never know what happened to Ida Lupino afterwards. She will probably just go on singing, maybe even "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", like she did when she got the plot started.

JohnWelles "Private Hell 36" (1954), directed by Don Siegel, is tough little film noir starring a reliable cast of familiar faces for film buffs: Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, Dean Jagger, Dorothy Malone and Howard Duff.The plot isn't anything particularly special: two cops (Cochran and Duff) decide to take thousands of dollars from the suitcase of a dead counterfeiter and hid it in a trailer park. But then Cochran starts suffering with his conscience… The opening scene is the best when Steve Cochran stumbles onto a drug store robbery late night. Burnett Guffey's agile camera surveys the action with a cool calm and helps put everything into perspective. The jazz soundtrack composed by Leith Stevens purrs along nicely, as does Don Siegel's direction, which is far from his finest hour but still holds the viewer interested in the events portrayed. The acting, on the main, is good, especially Ida Lupino as a singer cop Howard Duff falls fall. This isn't a shining example of the film noir genre but it passes the time pleasantly enough.

seymourblack-1 "Private Hell 36" is a no-frills crime thriller written by Ida Lupino and producer Collier Young which was made by their independent company "The Filmmakers". The story about temptation and police corruption is well paced and provides evidence of Don Siegel's considerable directorial skills at an early stage in his career. A particularly impressive example of this is the sequence early on in the movie in which an off duty cop interrupts a drugstore robbery and gets involved in a shoot out. The depiction of what follows is stylish and tense and provides the story with an extremely gripping introduction.When the LAPD links a $50.00 bill recovered in the attempted drugstore burglary to a major robbery carried out in New York a year earlier, further enquiries lead to a singer at a local night club. Police detectives Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran) and Jack Farnham (Howard Duff) interview the singer, Lilli Marlowe (Ida Lupino) but she's unable to provide them with a precise description of the customer who gave her the money as a tip. Soon, more of the marked bills come to light at the Hollywood Park Racetrack and this leads Captain Michaels (Dean Jagger) to assign Bruner and Farnham to accompany Lilli to the track to see if she can identify the wanted man. A number of days pass without the man being seen and during this time, Cal and Lilli become close. She's very materialistic and despite her attraction to Cal isn't convinced that a long term future with a police detective would enable her to achieve her financial aspirations.One day Lilli sees the man they're searching for leaving the track by car and Cal and Jack follow him. After a high speed chase, the car they'd been following leaves the road and crashes and the driver is killed. The two detectives recover a metal box full of money from the vehicle and Cal, without hesitation, starts to put bundles of bills into his pockets. Jack is very nervous about being a party to what has happened but Cal subsequently takes him to a trailer park where the money is hidden (in trailer number 36) and Jack agrees to go along with the scheme, although he remains very anxious and is consumed with guilt.Captain Michaels tells the two detectives that only $200,000 of the $300,000 stolen in New York had actually been recovered from the crashed car and deduces that the dead man must've had a partner. Shortly after this, a man claiming to be the partner telephones Cal to demand his money back. Jack doesn't want to proceed with paying the partner and suggests they hand the money in to the police and confess what they've done. Cal pays lip service to agreeing and they both go to get the money from trailer 36, where some unexpected developments bring the story to its all action climax."Private Hell 36" is one of those movies that certainly punches above its weight. Despite an obviously low budget and a very straight forward, pulp fiction type story, "The Filmmakers" produced an end product which turned out to be far greater than the sum of its parts. This is down to the director's skills and also some fine performances from a talented cast. Steve Cochran and Howard Duff are particularly good as the two men who both recognise the dangers of their jobs and who, for different reasons, are desperate to be better rewarded. When they discover the metal box full of money, both men are strongly tempted to steal its contents but their reactions are ultimately quite different to each other. Cochran is confident and focused as his character readily seizes the opportunity to realise his ambitions and seems totally unconcerned by any thoughts about guilt, duty or the legality of what he's doing. Duff on the other hand looks convincingly anxious and full of guilt. Dean Jagger also provides a well measured interpretation of his character's rather benign and avuncular manner which doesn't make it obvious just how well he's attuned to everything that's going on.

Martin Bradley This taut, low-key and highly effective B-movie film noir was an early example of a style that director Don Siegel came to perfect in his later films. Although dealing with robbery and murder it's at its most effective in the small scenes of domesticity between the central characters, a crooked cop, his partner and the women they are both involved with and there are good performances from Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino and Dorothy Malone in these roles. (Lupino co-wrote the movie with producer Collier Young). Excitement is generated from not knowing exactly which way the characters might go and from the degree of complexity that both the players and writers invest them with. The denouement is a bit of let-down, however, with things tidied up too quickly and too neatly. Still, it's a commendable effort.