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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I wanted to respond to a few comments about this wonderful film (which was a strong and highly effective character study). Dana Andrews received billing over Henry Fonda because Andrews was at the peak of his career with A WALK IN THE SUN, LAURA, THE FALLEN ANGEL AND THE BEST FILM OF 1946, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIFE. He was a superstar at that time and held on to stardom until the early 1960s but in films of lesser quality as the years went by. He was an excellent and underrated actor.Henry Fonda, whose first starring role was in 1935, was in the middle of his long career, not in the early stages as one writer said. Fonda, after serving 3 full years in WWII, had a difficult time maintaining his stardom, was never a strong box office star but was an outstanding actor. Fonda did not make any films after 1948 until MR. ROBERTS in 1955, his comeback. He constantly did fine and critically acclaimed stage work. Peter, his son, said he was gray-listed because of his liberal political views also. Fonda worked in major films with lead roles in films and on television until his death in 1982.Fonda was under contract and was forced to perform in this film by his studio. Andrews liked working with Otto Preminger and did so 4 times. Andrews was easy to work with and the autocratic Preminger liked Andrews because of his professionalism, easy going personality and outstanding acting ability.I was surprised that something more was not said or done about Dana Andrews' child torturing wife. Andrew shed a tear but did not report this beast to the authorities. (She yanked on her child's ear until the ear bled and the child had a significant ear ache.) That, even in the dark ages, should have been enough to have the child removed from her care, wouldn't it?

This is a pretty good film, so when I make the following criticism, I still think it's worth seeing. My problem with the film is casting Joan Crawford as a woman having an affair with a married man (Dana Andrews). That's because she had previously done this exact same sort of role many, many times--particularly in the 1930s. It's just too familiar, as is her later regrets and decision to live a more honorable life. Apart from, perhaps, Kay Francis, no woman played 'the other woman' as often as Joan! The movie begins with Crawford trying to break off her relationship with a married attorney (Andrews), but she supposedly 'can't help but love him'--a bit of a clichéd start, certainly. However, soon she begins casually dating a returning soldier (Henry Fonda) and eventually he asks her to marry him. Well, she has to either choose the life of a slut or an honest to goodness married woman, and she chooses Fonda. But, unfortunately, there are a lot of complications and things don't go as smoothly for everyone as she'd hoped.The film is a soap opera with many familiar elements, but it's all filmed and acted so well that it's hard not to still enjoy the movie. While far from the best of the leads or director Premminger, it's still worth seeing and does offer up a few surprises...just a few.

Benign affair with Joan Crawford really being unable to make up her mind who the man for her actually is. Should it be married, successful lawyer Dana Andrews or the rather dull widower Henry Fonda? Crawford chooses the latter, but a phone conversation with Andrews where he professes his love for her,is heard by his vicious wife and some fireworks start but never become blazing.Ruth Warrick is excellent as the wife of Andrews. The daughter of a wealthy man who is Andrews' law partner, she is an embittered woman who leashes her fury out on her younger daughter. I really thought there would be a tragedy there and I was glad that I'm wrong.The ending is predictable because that's the way the film should have ended. Missing here is an excitable Joan Crawford capable of anything. To disagree with other writers, this is certainly not one of Andrews' best films. To me, he will always be endearing as that soldier returning home in "The Best Years of Our Lives."

This film is a great vehicle for Joan Crawford, and one of my favorites from the middle portion of Joan's career . In fact, I can't imagine any other actress in the lead. Daisy Kenyon (Joan Crawford) plays a commercial artist who is the strong independent type. She has fallen in love with a married man of means (Dana Andrews) who has a clingy and emotionally unstable wife (Ruth Warrick) and a couple of daughters that he knows he will lose access to if he gets a divorce. In other words, he is permanently married and he and Daisy's relationship is going nowhere. Enter Peter Lapham (Henry Fonda), a widower recently back from World War II. Both men love Daisy, but only one can "do right" by her - Peter. Unfortunately, he is not the man she loves.The resulting love triangle, the idea of any of this being particularly scandalous even to someone aiming for public life, and in particular the then quite backwards divorce laws of the state of New York might seem quaint to a modern audience, but the private situations and emotions of the characters still ring true. Who does Daisy choose in the end? The man willing to give her up. I'll let you watch the film and find out which of the two men that is.