Pristinely restored and re-released in the UK, Carol Reed's crepuscular 1949 masterwork only matures with age, its themes becoming more fragile and illusive the closer we get to it. Like Orson Welles' own Touch of Evil, to come in 1958, this is a film which does away with such cretinous inanity as offering up goodies and baddies, instead presenting its cast of characters as doing things which they believe to be good, but are not seen as such through the eyes of observers.
David Jenkins
juni 26, 2015