davidssefton

Clearly Nicholas Ray was "trying stuff out" that would later evolve into the distinctive style of 'Rebel Without A Cause', 'In A Lonely Place' et al. Just his second film - his first the much more straightforward They Drive By Night. But this film is a shambles. The camerawork is so bad its often unintentionally hilarious, some of the performances so over the top its a wonder there's any scenery left to chew, and the plot is garbled and incoherent. Given the talent involved (it really is an A list cast and crew on paper) this is a truly terrible film - frankly its a miracle he ever worked again!

Waste of a good cast. Waste of whatever the bloated budget must have been. But most of all a waste of over three hours (and eight minutes) of your life you'll never get back.

This film steals from countless other films to no effect and throws in a bunch of soft porn in the hope we'll be distracted enough to realise there's no original story in there.

Ultimately the whole "this is a love letter to cinema" feels more like a cynical device than an act of sincerity - there really isn't any "There" there with this film and it feels like a massive waste of everyone's time.

Bloated. Clichéd. Utterly pointless.

I had no idea there were Kiwis in the German Nazi party!

The things you learn from rubbish horror films... Not a serious contender for anything.

Reviews on here describing this as good or scary really need to see a few more well-made films!