Robert Cummings
– Chuck Scott
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Synopsis
Returning a stranger's wallet earns a penniless veteran a job driving for a Miami gangster. The man's frightened wife asks the new chauffeur to help her flee to Havana, turning a simple act of honesty into a dangerous entanglement. Escape offers little certainty in a story where fear, memory and reality keep shifting.
Cast
DirectorsArthur Ripley
Inspirations
Philip Yordan adapted Cornell Woolrich's novel The Black Path of Fear. The film preserves the author's world of anxious outsiders and dangerous desire while reshaping the narrative into a disorienting mixture of crime story and nightmare.
Behind the scenes
The Production Code affected how the screenplay handled wrongdoing and its consequences. Dream framing and changes to the timing of events helped accommodate those restrictions. Casting disputes and an electrical workers' strike also disrupted the production.
Sources and availability
The synopsis and editorial text were written for this collection. The references below were cross-checked to identify the film and its copy; each editorial section identifies its reference.
Work catalogued as public domain in the United States.
The reference concerns the original work. Restorations, colorization, translations and other territories may have different conditions. This site uses the player enabled by the channel.
Availability checked on September 10, 2026.
Photograph credit
Photographs cropped, resized and optimized as WebP, displayed in monochrome.
- Robert Cummings — CBS Television · Public domain
- Michèle Morgan — Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
- Steve Cochran — film screenshot (United Artists) · Public domain
- Peter Lorre — Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
