Forget the sensationalist title, as while there's certainly some waking up here, (one scene of Victor Mature's character doing just that is certainly memorable), no-one does so screaming and you get a fine, early, at least for the recognised time-span of the genre, film noir with an interesting cast and strong direction overcoming the contrivances of the plot.
It all starts like a light comedy as three men in a bar decide to bet on whether one of them, talent promoter Frankie Christopher, played by a young Victor Mature, can set up their pretty but acid-tongued waitress, Vicky, played by Carole Landis, in high-society. As a plot line it Shaw feels familiar, but unfortunately this fair lady winds up dead setting up the basic whodunit premise of the film.
Vicky has a younger sister, the more grounded Jill, played by a young Betty Grable, who falls for fast-talking Frankie, even as he seems to be the cops' number one suspect, particularly in the eyes of the hulking police captain, played by the excellent Laird Cregar who's never lost a case and so takes against Frankie, for reasons which become clear as the film progresses, to the extent of stalking him, and using other highly questionable techniques too, to almost demand he own up to the crime.
Pretty soon Mature and Grable unsurprisingly find themselves on the run from the law and as you'd somehow expect find a way to crack the case themselves to expose the true murderer as well as levelling matters with the obsessive Cregar.
The plot fairly rattles along stopping only briefly and questionably when the two young leads end a night on the town by going for a midnight swim at the local indoor lido (as you do) which surely had to be an obvious excuse to get the muscular Mature and shapely Grable into swimming costumes. Both are otherwise appealing in their roles although personally I can visualise a young Frank Sinatra here in his namesake role, although possibly he just wasn't mature (groan!) enough at the time of casting.
Of course in retrospect, the film is haunted to some degree by knowledge of the early demises of Miss Landis and Mr Cregar, both in sad circumstances. I have to agree with those who say that Miss Landis, who committed suicide as a result of an extra-marital affair (on his part) with Rex Harrison, whilst very pretty and certainly a competent player just lacked that star quality to really break through as an A-lister, but I doubt you could say that about the formidable Mr Cregar. In a role redolent in more ways than one of Orson Welles' brilliant later portrayal of a similarly seedy, shady, crazed police detective in "Touch Of Evil", he commands every scene he's in as he routinely breaks into people's apartments without a warrant and acts as judge jury and proxy executioner of whoever he decides is the guilty party. I'm sure he could have been a long-term fixture as a character actor but unfortunately his reckless action in going on a crash diet ostensibly to garner him leading-man status ended up with a death by heart attack at only 31.
Despite a strange soundtrack which seems to feature 101 variations of "Over The Rainbow" for some reason, this is a high quality 'tec' thriller, atmospherically shot and well acted which deserves to be much better known.
It all starts like a light comedy as three men in a bar decide to bet on whether one of them, talent promoter Frankie Christopher, played by a young Victor Mature, can set up their pretty but acid-tongued waitress, Vicky, played by Carole Landis, in high-society. As a plot line it Shaw feels familiar, but unfortunately this fair lady winds up dead setting up the basic whodunit premise of the film.
Vicky has a younger sister, the more grounded Jill, played by a young Betty Grable, who falls for fast-talking Frankie, even as he seems to be the cops' number one suspect, particularly in the eyes of the hulking police captain, played by the excellent Laird Cregar who's never lost a case and so takes against Frankie, for reasons which become clear as the film progresses, to the extent of stalking him, and using other highly questionable techniques too, to almost demand he own up to the crime.
Pretty soon Mature and Grable unsurprisingly find themselves on the run from the law and as you'd somehow expect find a way to crack the case themselves to expose the true murderer as well as levelling matters with the obsessive Cregar.
The plot fairly rattles along stopping only briefly and questionably when the two young leads end a night on the town by going for a midnight swim at the local indoor lido (as you do) which surely had to be an obvious excuse to get the muscular Mature and shapely Grable into swimming costumes. Both are otherwise appealing in their roles although personally I can visualise a young Frank Sinatra here in his namesake role, although possibly he just wasn't mature (groan!) enough at the time of casting.
Of course in retrospect, the film is haunted to some degree by knowledge of the early demises of Miss Landis and Mr Cregar, both in sad circumstances. I have to agree with those who say that Miss Landis, who committed suicide as a result of an extra-marital affair (on his part) with Rex Harrison, whilst very pretty and certainly a competent player just lacked that star quality to really break through as an A-lister, but I doubt you could say that about the formidable Mr Cregar. In a role redolent in more ways than one of Orson Welles' brilliant later portrayal of a similarly seedy, shady, crazed police detective in "Touch Of Evil", he commands every scene he's in as he routinely breaks into people's apartments without a warrant and acts as judge jury and proxy executioner of whoever he decides is the guilty party. I'm sure he could have been a long-term fixture as a character actor but unfortunately his reckless action in going on a crash diet ostensibly to garner him leading-man status ended up with a death by heart attack at only 31.
Despite a strange soundtrack which seems to feature 101 variations of "Over The Rainbow" for some reason, this is a high quality 'tec' thriller, atmospherically shot and well acted which deserves to be much better known.