This extremely weird B movie has been hailed as the first true film-noir, and it certainly has all the noir elements, both visual and thematic. Feeling guilty because his eyewitness testimony has sent a man who could be innocent to the electric chair, reporter Michael Ward [John McGuire] returns to his apartment in a state of depression. On the stairs he notices an odd-looking little man wearing a white scarf [Peter Lorre] loitering in the building and chases him off. In his room, the reporter realizes that his nosy next door neighbor, Mr. Meng [Charles Halton], isn't doing his usual loud snoring. Tired and upset, Michael wonders if Meng is dead. Falling asleep, Michael has a nightmare where he is wrongly accused of his neighbor's murder and is sentenced to die in the electric chair. Upon awakening, Michael checks on Meng and to his horror, finds the man murdered. Arrested for the crime, Michael must rely on his fiancé, Jane [Margaret Tallichet], to track down the mysterious man in the white scarf. Director Boris Ingster, cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, and art director Van Nest Polglase created a frightening, claustrophobic, and nightmarish urban environment ruled by indifference, injustice, and moral corruption. Lorre's killer is obviously mad [an escaped mental patient], but in his brief screen time he is seen to be a sympathetic victim of harsh and thoughtless treatment. Ingster's direction shows the heavy influence of the German expressionist films of the 1920s and the film is a visual delight. [TV Guide]