Touchy, forgetful, and psychopathic, Howard has already murdered one woman and is perhaps destined to murder another—nice Helen Gardner, the protagonist of the thriller Beware, My Lovely (1952). Helen hires Howard as a day laborer, but Howard seeks to be comforted and then oppressive, forbidding Helen to leave her house. Helen makes every imaginable move that a woman in her circumstances would make—this alone is absorbing—and Ida Lupino enacts her splendidly. She can sustain fright and is never hammy. Robert Ryan is as charming as Lupino, but a perfect Howard and so never false as a mentally disturbed culprit. Harry Howard, often a movie production designer, directed satisfactorily.