Where Danger Lives

On a night shift, Doctor Jeff Cameron saves a woman brought in after a suicide attempt. Margo is wealthy, beautiful, and the story she tells keeps changing. Jeff leaves his fiancée and attaches himself to her. At her house he meets an older man whom she introduces as her father and who says he is her husband. There is a fight. Jeff takes a blow and comes round with concussion; Margo is beside him and the man is dead. The two run for the Mexican border. John Farrow directs. Robert Mitchum plays Jeff and Faith Domergue plays Margo. The idea is that the hero cannot be relied on. Jeff has concussion and his condition worsens as the film goes on: he cannot speak, cannot remember and cannot decide. The doubt usual in noir is tied here directly to a medical state. The woman is among the harder examples of the type. Nothing Margo says is ever confirmed and the narrative keeps it open to the end. It was made at RKO during the period when Howard Hughes ran the studio; Faith Domergue was among the performers he promoted. Nicholas Musuraca is the cinematographer, one of the best known names in noir, and the night scenes are built accordingly. Who it is for: viewers who like classical noir and Robert Mitchum. Who it is not for: the plot rests on coincidence, the writing of the woman belongs to its period, and the ending is rushed.