Best movie of this year hands down!

Crappy film

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

. . . had to write essays about how THEY thought a short story called "The Lady or the Tiger" REALLY ended. He said that he always thought that there was a Tiger behind the Green Door. It seems that CLASH BY NIGHT--also from the 1900s--has an ambiguous "Lady or Tiger" conclusion as well. Though Brutish Sardiner Jerry SAYS that Baby Gloria is sleeping, there are absolutely NO baby sounds coming from the other room below decks on this movie's soundtrack. This leaves viewers to wonder exactly WHAT greets life-long wanton strumpet Mae when this adulterous mommy ventures behind her own Green Door. Is it a preternaturally quiet babe sleeping safe and sound, as the Cuckolded Papa Jerry has suggested? Or has this bear of a man been exposed to one DANGEROUS LIAISON too many, and gone all Glenn Close over Mae's FATAL ATTRACTION? (Only this time it's not RABBIT stew simmering in the cook pot.) It's hard to guess how the Papal Reps controlling America's censor board in 1952 would have resolved this conundrum, had they not been too preoccupied molesting all the local lads.

A hardened woman returns home to a fishing village only to be caught between two men.At least the movie has Andes and Monroe whose characters come across as refreshingly natural, along with revealing stock footage of the fishing industry. However, the rest of the film is pitched about ten decibels over the top, with all the subtlety of a hammer blow. Douglas's Jerry is not just a nice guy, he's a rub-your-nose-in-it Nice Guy. Similarly for Ryan's cynical Earl and Stanwyck's hard case Mae. Not even such first-rate performers as these can overcome the relentlessly overblown dialog or stagy sets. Nor does it appear the three were allowed to shade their performances beyond one-dimensional caricature. At the same time, the symbolism of roiling seas and surging tide is about as necessary as gravy on soup. In short, the movie amounts to a textbook exercise of heavy-handed histrionics and too much talk, Fritz Lang or no Fritz Lang.I expect other reviewers are right about the material being shaped for 1950's audiences. In those days, one way of getting people away from TV was to promise them titillation since there was none on TV. But then producers faced the problem of Production Code limits on what could be shown or said on screen, especially in the way of sex. Thus, the emphasis in the film is on the atmospherics of desire instead of anything more literal. This results in a movie that, unfortunately, drowns in an overlay of heavy breathing, standard innuendo, and redundant symbolism. Such may have titillated audiences then; now there's just a dreary sameness in the repetition. At the same time, that turnaround ending shouldn't be overlooked. Unhappily, it's of the same Code-compromised sort that damaged more 50's movies than just this one.I guess my biggest regret is how the movie takes three of Hollywood's most capable actors and reduces them to near-caricature of their usual screen persona, Douglas and Ryan, especially. Here's hoping they were at least well paid.

Great film. A big film full of brooding with simmering passions and crashing waves. Barbara Stanwyck is startlingly good in the central role as she takes us with her on her domestic roller coaster ride. Will she, won't she? What is it all about? Robert Ryan does well in an equally difficult role, somewhere between rock bottom loser and confident romantic lover. Paul Douglas seems to struggle at first as the humble good guy as he verges on the buffoon, but recovers and get stronger with the changing of his role. The fishing and factory scenes are tremendous and add much to the backbone of the story, illustrating the precarious security it provides those struggling to survive each other. Monroe shines in a minor role and is as irresistible as ever despite some unflattering clothes. This is not a noir and nor is it an early Lang classic but it is what it is, a very powerful and well told (and shot) melodrama of the highest order.

Tough cookie Barbara Stanwyck finds little piece of mind after returning home from the big city to the Monterrey seashore and marrying a mild-mannered fisherman. Before long, restlessness leads her into a tawdry affair with kindred spirit Robert Ryan, a hard drinking loner and one of her trusting husband's best friends. The entire cast of characters may be troubled and/or confused, but thankfully the same shortcomings don't extend behind the camera. From a stage drama that could easily have been played as shabby melodrama, Fritz Lang directed a memorable tragedy of human misconduct, crowded with unspoken passions and permeated by a climate of impending menace.