Instant Favorite.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The only thing that keeps this movie from receiving the worst possible rating is that the fine cast all give first-rate performances. First-rate performances of an amazingly bad script, unfortunately.How could Jack Warner have thought this would work? It's confusing, uninteresting, and no, not funny. Seeing the stars of The Sea Hawk from just the year before - Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Alan Hale - try to make this come alive is almost painful.And who thought of trying to pass Lee Patrick, a fine comedian, off as a burlesque queen???? Her number is downright embarrassing, and it's not really her fault. She was completely wrong for the part.Skip this movie. Yes, Flynn is his usual charming himself, but that certainly can't save this mistake.

. . . for an hour and a half during FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK. This flick is structured pretty much as a spoof of THE MALTESE FALCON, but short-sighted set decorators forgot to include an iconic prop which could be auctioned off for millions 75 years later. No harm done, since if you pro-rate the enduring entertainment value of FOOTSTEPS against that of FALCON, a hypothetical objective correlative for FOOTSTEPS might go for about 59 cents at the final gavel at Bonham's today. Mr. Flynn looks somewhat lost without his sword, and one glance at co-star Brenda Marshall is enough to see why the prop people "kept it real" by placing her and husband DON JUAN in twin beds. It's too bad Lucile Watson, who plays Flynn's live-in mother-in-law Agatha, wasn't around to take a similar role in TV's BEWITCHED a couple decades later--Ms. Watson makes a far better nag than Agnes Moorehead. Maybe you can only get away with James Cagney's grapefruit scene once in Tinsel Town, but Flynn Coulda-been-a-contender for PUBLIC ENEMY, JUNIOR, if he'd ad-libbed a Double Grapefruit during FOOTSTEP's breakfast episode.

That dashing Errol Flynn plays Francis Monroe Warren II, an upper-crust investment counselor that lives a double life away from his high society...rubbing elbows with the police and secretly writing crime novels under a pseudonym. His recent book Footsteps in the Dark, seems to be ruffling the feathers of the elite; and his own mother hires someone to try and find out who is doing this writing. His wife(Brenda Marshall)thinks he spends a lot of time at night at stuffy board meetings; while he is actually investigating current crimes and trying to debunk the theories of local police. Francis even becomes the subject of interest in a murder over a fortune in jewels. The pace is brisk and you have to be quick to catch some of the humor. In support are: Alan Hale, William Frawley, Roscoe Karns, Lee Patrick and Lucile Watson.

Footsteps in the Dark is the title of a mystery novel that investment banker Errol Flynn wrote under a pseudonym that has become a best seller. Unfortunately he used as characters some of his wife Brenda Marshall and mother-in-law Lucille Watson's society friends and they'd like to sue the author if they can find him.Errol while trying to see they don't find out what his double life is gets himself involved in another murder of Noel Madison who wanted Flynn to essentially launder the money from some stolen jewels in his banker self. Flynn spends over 90 minutes struggling to keep his identities secret from those who know him in one guise or the other and solve the mystery at the same time. The only two who know about his masquerade are his chauffeur Allen Jenkins and his lawyer Grant Mitchell.Flynn had a very good gift for comedy, he had already done The Perfect Specimen and Four's A Crowd and had gotten good reviews. Footsteps in the Dark was an effort by Warner Brothers to cash in on the popularity and success MGM was enjoying with The Thin Man series. Flynn and Marshall were good together though there was no further sequels.Best in the film by far is William Frawley as one truly dumb detective that even his superior Alan Hale is frustrated with. Flynn bounces some great lines off Frawley.It's a different Errol Flynn than normal and not a bad one.