starring Edmond O'Brien
directed by Rudolph Maté
83 minutes
Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) goes to San Francisco on a vacation. He hangs out with some people he doesn't know when he gets there. He wakes up the next morning with a pain in his stomach. He goes to see a doctor and learns that he has been poisoned. The poison has been in his system too long for the doctor or anyone to do anything for him. He has only a day or two to live.
Frank finds out that Eugene Philips, who tried to reach him just after he went on vacation, has died. Philips' company is based out of Los Angeles so Frank heads there and tries to find out what happened to Philips. He is convinced that the death of Philips is linked to his own poisoning.
Frank digs for answers and stirs up trouble. Some of the people he initially meets turn out to be lying to him but they aren't all colluding with one another. Frank eventually unravels the mystery but it is too late for him.
Thoughts
Frank does two or three laps of Los Angeles during the course of the movie. He runs into people multiple times. I almost needed a scorecard to keep track of everyone with whom Frank crossed paths. Some of them he seeks out and some of them come looking for him.
I wasn't familiar with any of the actors in this movie by name other than Edmond O'Brien although I have seen some of them (Neville Brand) in other films. I can't help but compare Brand's role in this movie to Richard Widmark's role in Kiss of Death (1947), although Widmark's part in that film was larger than Brand's role in this one.
This was a fun ride. I had my doubts around the midpoint but I was enjoying it enough and the pace really picked up in the back half of the movie.
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