More than half a century after its original release, this film continues to entertain. Barbara Stanwyck turns in a superb performance as a newspaper woman who falls for a police detective (Sterling Hayden) and gives up her ambition of working in New York to settle down as a housewife in Los Angeles. But as her husband’s boss (Raymond Burr) points out, you are always who you are, and her ambition must still be inside her. As she begins to find socializing with other housewives soul-numbing, she devises a plan to get her husband promoted. It seems to be working, but then…

What makes this good drama is the acting and the build-up of tension. It is a little over-dramatized in the style of 1950’s film noir, but completely forgivable. You will get caught up in it. Also a good reminder of how much life has changed (and hasn’t) in 50 years. The role of cigarettes in this movie is amazing—exactly how it was back then, when everyone smoked and nothing was thought of it.