Bud learns of the investigation and eliminates Powell, which, again, is taken to be a suicide.īud and Ellen become engaged, but Gordon shows up during the engagement party to tell her that he has discovered that Powell could not have committed the crime. Trying to gather information, Ellen contacts Gordon Grant (Jeffrey Hunter), who tutored Dorothy, and suspects that Dwight Powell (Robert Quarry) is the killer. Ellen has no idea of Bud’s previous affair with Dory, though she always had doubts about the death. Meanwhile, Dory’s sister, Ellen (Virginia Leith), is dating Bud, and he’s trying to ingratiate himself with father Leo. Meeting on the roof, he pushes her down, but her death is considered a suicide because of a letter he had forged and mailed. In panic, when the plan fails, Bud purposely has Dory meet him at the municipal building during lunch, when offices are closed. She does not care about that, claiming she has freed herself of her father’s control–“I am no longer Dorothy I’m Dory.”īud hesitates when Dory insists on getting married right away, and attempts to harm her, which Dory registers as an accident.īud then plans an elaborate scheme that would appear like her suicide. When he discovers that Dorothy is pregnant, he realizes she will be disinherited by her father, Leo Kingship (George Macready).
Set in 1956, the tale centers on Bud Corliss (Wagner), a driven university student who is courting fellow student Dorothy Kingship (Joanne Woodward) for her father’s mining fortune. The movie demonstrated a recurrent theme and character in film noir, the disruptive force of a psychotic maniac (usually a young seductive male), threatening the scared values of domesticity and family love. His problem is a naïve pregnant girl–played by Joanne Woodward in one of her first films–who truly loves him. Wagner plays a handsome, charming, ultra-ambitious guy, who would stop at nothing to achieve upward mobility. Zanuck bought the book’s rights in August 1953, after a bidding war among the studios. The screenplay was written by Lawrence Roman, based on Ira Levin’s 1953 novel of the same name, which won the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.ĭarryl F.
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