Orson Welles’ most financially successful film has a plot that mirrors Hitchcock’s earlier Shadow of a Doubt (with a Nazi as opposed to a serial killer), a Welles monologue on the banality of evil that warms him up for his cuckoo clock speech in Reed’s later The Third Man, and an ending right out of his very first short film, The Heart of Ages. It was also the feature where the studio held the tightest reins and shows it, as clear cuts can be seen and Welles’ own performance is kept understated by the presence of the inimitable Edward G. Robinson.

–DB