Crossroads

A well-known French diplomat in Paris lost his memory in an accident fifteen years earlier and built his life from nothing afterwards. He married, made a career, and nobody asked about his past. One day blackmail letters begin arriving: the writer says that before he lost his memory the man was involved in a large robbery and a killing. He does not himself know whether he is guilty. The idea is a good one: the hero cannot defend his own innocence because he does not remember either. MGM builds it as a thriller and a courtroom drama. William Powell drops his usual wit and plays an uneasy man. Hedy Lamarr is his wife, Basil Rathbone the blackmailer and Claire Trevor the woman out of the past. At eighty-three minutes it moves quickly, one of the well-made mid-scale productions of the studio system.