I'm a bit on the fence on this film as on one hand it packs quite some punch and delivers some super effective oldschool thrills but then again, its male "hero" is such a slick (and morally totally perfect, just so fucking perfect....) nothing-burger of a character. The villain benefits from an impressive performance by Robert Mitchum but, just like his counterpart, really could have used a bit of complexity and ambivalence.

Several frequent Hitchcock collaborators behind the scenes sure give the whole thing some distinctly hitchcockian visual flair. The plot though is kinda dropping the ball, coming down to a battle between pure good and absolute evil which gets resolved in the most lazy unimaginative way possible - with two dudes punching each other for a few minutes and all i can think is... mainstream filmmaking hasn't made much progress in the 60 years since.

Also: Half a star penalty for some shitty 1960s morality which includes the shaming/stigmatization of sex workers aswell as sexual abuse victims, which in that narrow-minded 60s view get both rolled into the same character (yeah, of course they do) and are portrayed as inevitably broken and ultimately tragic characters.