Robert J. Maxwell It's pretty dull for the first two thirds of the movie. Kent Smith is the dignified, reserved, highly respected, happily married, wealthy, and thoroughly bored doctor in San Francisco. Every day is the same.Then he runs into Nora Prentiss, Anne Sheridan, or rather somebody else runs into her and he takes her to his office to fix her slightly bruised knee. Kaboom! For months they go at each other like two warthogs in heat. On the screen, they are two people in love with each other. A cynic might opine that the elderly doctor has finally found a young lady who makes him horny, while the night club floozy has nabbed a lover who is a doctor and is raking in the shekels and who might even divorce his bland wife and marry her and allow her to live the life style to which she's always aspired.Sheridan decides it can't go on like this, so she takes off for New York. Inspired, Smith hustles the corpse of a homeless patient who has just died in his office, equips the corpse with his own identification, and pushes it off a cliff in a burning car. End of Doctor Talbot; birth of Mister Thompson, who withdraws a lot of money from the bank and chases Sheridan to New York.He grows terrified of being found out. He takes to drink. He holes up in a hotel while Sheridan gets a job as a night club singer. He begins to look like hell. He turns extremely, violently jealous of Sheridan.The ending, which medical discretion forbids me to reveal, certainly revives the interest of the patient who must be nearly comatose by now. A wild pursuit, a flaming car crash, the unveiling of the shattered face. But then the story completely implodes. Or -- well, let me ask you. Would you willingly sit in the electric chair in order to preserve the dignity of your dull family? You WOULD? Kent Smith is good at being reserved. He's always reserved. He's a reserved man. It's his stock in trade on the screen. He was not even unnerved when confronted by his wife after she'd turned into a black panther in "Curse of the Cat People." Ann Sheridan is okay although she doesn't really seem to be the seductress that the film wants her to be. She's more of a decent babe who is good natured and outdoorsy.

jarrodmcdonald-1 How can you not love a film like this? It's a splendid combination of melodrama, horror and gangster picture all rolled up into one. Not many films are made that way. And with such great performances, it's a real treat.Warners' presentation of Ann Sheridan in a more serious role takes her away from her usual assignments as a saucy, wisecracking dame. This particular story has Sheridan as a nightclub singer who falls for a married doctor and naturally should not have him. But in utter and complete defiance of the production code, she does get him, and it leads to his utter and complete ruination. The film is bolstered by costars Kent Smith as the doctor, Rosemary de Camp as the doctor's wife, and Robert Alda as a gangster who wants Miss Sheridan all to himself. And frankly, who wouldn't..?

RanchoTuVu A well-respected and well-off San Francisco doctor basically gives it all up for a doomed fling with a night club singer. Kent Smith as the doctor gives a decent performance with some high points in it, but the script doesn't really afford Ann Sheridan as the singer too many opportunities. For such a supposedly torrid romance, this one seems to avoid any hint of heat or passion. Nonetheless, Smith gets better as his character's social and professional standing deteriorates. Rosemary DeCamp's part as Smith's wife isn't too badly scripted, with a great scene of her at her teenage daughter's sixteenth birthday party which Smith had forgotten about due to his muted lusting after Sheridan. The film has a neat twist in it for an ending, which doesn't quite rescue it from its overall tepidness. The fact that James Wong Howe was the cinematographer is at least one compelling reason to watch this movie.

sol **SPOILERS** Straight laced at his practice as a big city, San Francisco, doctor and wonderful family man Richard Talbot, Kent Smith,has never done anything more serious in his life then being late at his doctors office. That was all to change when one evening going to his car he ran into singer Nora Prentiss, Ann Sheridan. Nora has a fainting spell falling on the street and bruising herself. Bringing Nora up to his office Richard after treating her starts to slowly fall madly in love with Nora. That leads to him throwing away his very successful practice his family, wife and two children, and later even his life, which in the movie he loses twice. Where in the end Richard faces the California gas chamber for first degree murder. The movie "Nora Prentiss" is about a mans obsession. That obsession leads him into such depths of depression and depravity that he destroys everything he held near and dear to himself in order to keep the woman, Nora Prentiss, that drove him into this madness and in the end loses her as well. Nora for her part is totally unaware of how far her lover was willing to go to keep her from disappearing out of his life. Spending money like crazy on Nora and using the excuse of working late at the office so that his wife Lucy, Rosemary DeCamp, won't suspect his almost nightly lateness from home Richard is still very reluctant to divorce his wife, on what possible grounds? Then like heaven sent a patient of his Walter Bailey, John Ridgely, who not only fits Richards hight and weight but is even Richard's age,43, pops into his office one night and collapses and dies from a heart attack! Going to call the police to pick up the body Richard get this bright idea to switch identities and thus bury his past, as Dr. Richard Talbot, and start a new life as whoever he chooses with who he feels is the love of his life Nora Prentiss. Nora who was leaving for New York for a job as a singer at the Sea Gull Cafe run by her very close friend and former employer Phil Dinardo,Robert Alda, runs into Richard who excitedly tells Nora that he's divorcing his wife and within weeks when his divorce papers go through they'll be able to get married. Rchard in fact disposed of Bailey's body with his wedding ring on him to make it look like he was the one who was killed. In New York living like a fugitive from the law Richard has Nora becomes a bit annoyed of his constant secrecy and avoidance of people. It soon gets to the point where she's forced to live with Richard in a hotel room and only having her job at Phil's nightclub as the only contact with the outside world. Richard, now calling himself Robert Tompson, for his part constantly keeps up with the news back home in San Francisco and learns that his "death" is being investigated by the police as a murder suspect with evidence found at his office; The cops found a letter of divorce that he partly burned that's interpreted as a blackmail note. Also at the accident scene the police found a can of gasoline with his fingerprints on it. Richard finally lose it when he finds Nora, who by then he already confessed what he did, in her dressing room with Phil! That has him go into a jealous rage and attacks the startled nightclub owner. This causes the police to chase Richard all through the streets of Manhattan ending up in a fiery accident in Central Park with his face badly burned. With Phil not pressing charges and Richard getting a face-over, plastic surgery, it now looks like he and Nora can finally get married and put his life as Doctor Richard Talbot behind him. It's then his being fingerprinted by the police for car theft and those fingerprints matched those back in San Franciso on the can of gasoline come up as a match! This made Richard the number one suspect in his own murder! how's that for ultimate justice. Now with nothing to look forward to with his wife and family as well as Nora out of his life forever Richard, or as he's known now as Robert Thompson, can only sit in his dark prison cell and count the days leading up to his scheduled execution. He can also see what a mess he made of his life by reaching for something that he should have known was well out of his reach Nora Prentiss.