davidcarniglia A good noir thriller with a neat gimmick. Edmund O'Brien's Steve, part of an armored car robbery gang, gets caught, but he's paroled to a hospital for experimental surgery. He subsequently loses his memory. This cleverly sets up the archetypal noir hero's sense of alienation from society.For once in her noir career, Audrey Totter's character is sympathetic. As Steve's girlfriend, she starts out unconcerned about his fate, but, as she realizes what happened to him, her love for him outpaces her greed for the missing loot.The pacing keeps the plot moving at a pretty good clip. At first I thought the bumper car chase was silly, the cops gliding around in formation--as if on parade. And, from such close range, they should've been able to nail Steve. But then I remembered that Steve was having a nightmare. The mixing of memories and dreams with the main plot adds more and more, building into the palpably grotesque atmosphere of the amusement park. This long sequence is cooly spun into a quick finish. Steve 'squares' himself with the police, and he and Peg can finally have each other. The 3-D effects would probably look pretty cool in a theater. They happen quickly and don't detract much. But the trio of bad guys with goofy nicknames could've used more than the two-dimensional treatment that they're given. As a result, the middle of the movie does drag a bit, as they try to sweat out the whereabouts of the money from Steve.They can't be so dumb not to realize that he really doesn't know much about the past; why else would he have been on parole to have a mysterious operation as well as a new identity? Aside from dangling those chumps into the plot, Man In the Dark works relentlessly to keep our attention, and ultimately to bring O'Brien and Totter together. Along the way, the viewer's treated to a sort of noir Christmas.

mmcgee282 Some one had bad mouth this picture labeling it no different than the three stooges film that was in 3D ,Spooks,but, This wasn't.The story was strong The focus on the 3d was the depth.The sepia tones were not restored .It did have few throwing on your face sequence ,but, it was sticking to the plot ,except for the bird sequence.For some reason there were a few shots that were flat.They were only a few seconds .Once again I'm guessing that the left or the right eye version of those shots were missing or have been damaged.It did not mess the whole film up Edmond is having half of his brains removed so he can get out of prison for robbing a security company.It works,but ,as he is recovering ,the old gang shows up and kidnaps him.Back at his ex girl friend apartment ,played by Audrey Totter ,Queen of the Noir flicks,everybody thinks he's the same .The gang individually tries to make him tell where the money is.They even use his girl friend,but, he doesn't remember.It isn't till later after some of his gang beat him up in an attempted to escape, that his girl friend realizes he does not remember.Then he start having a dream which causes him to remember where he had gotten the money, after the gang took him to his old house and he found a sticker number.Then he and Audrey escape the gang into a carnival ,where he had hid the money in a box at a place where you have your stuff deathwatch.He's going to get it and keep it for himself ,instead of giving back to the insurance company .Audrey had reform she mad that he doesn't want to be honest.It's an irony that there is a roller coaster scene where the gang chases him up there .Unfortunately it's screen with props for the roller coaster ride ,so you don't feel the effect .It's very obvious than Columbia took this from the film that was made a year earlier,This is Cinerama,the roller coaster ideal into the plot.Excellent 3D noir. 02/6/12

blanche-2 Edmond O'Brien stars in "Man in the Dark," a 1953 film also starring Audrey Totter. O'Brien plays Steve Rawley, a prisoner who undergoes experimental surgery that's supposed to erase the criminal elements of his brain. It also wipes his memory of past events.Unfortunately Steve and some other thugs committed a big robbery and Steve hid the money. Now that he has no memory, he doesn't know where he put it. His old gang kidnaps him and tries to find out his hiding place. His old girlfriend Peg (Totter) is around, and she wants him to forget the whole thing and go away with her.Steve starts remembering things in the form of bizarre dreams. He and Peg attempt to follow the clues in the dreams to track down the money.Edmond O'Brien made a lot of these B films for Columbia. This one is no better or worse than many of them. The last part of the film takes place in an amusement park, and it's very good.Originally this film was in 3-D, and like some other films, it was filmed in the seen-better-days area of Ocean Park near Venice, CA. I always like seeing the old LA, and this film has lots of shots of it.I had one major problem with this film, and it's a major plot hole. If you had stolen a lot of money and hidden it, why would you agree to a surgery that is going to clean out your memory so that you don't remember where you hid it? I don't know the answer.

paluska Originally made in 3-D, this is another of Columbia's black & white releases of this genre (like Vincent Price in the Mad Magician). 3-D process and numerous subjective camera techniques (like scapels used in operation coming out at the screen, bullets firing at speeding cars, whirling around car rides at an amusement park, etc.)make this interesting viewing and out of the ordinary story about a thug who can't remember anything about his $130,000 heist after brain surgery.