Two O'Clock Courage

In the middle of the night a cab driver almost runs down a man standing in the road. He has no idea who he is; his memory is completely gone. She does not leave him there, and the two start looking for his past together. The first thing that turns up is bad news: he is wanted for a murder. This is one of Anthony Mann's early pictures, short and fast with no scene going to waste. In sixty-eight minutes the amnesia idea is used without any heaviness. The curiosity and stubbornness of the woman carry the film; the driver here is not a sidekick but the person moving the story. Mann would move on within a few years to the noirs and westerns he became known for, but the tightness is already visible.