n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The estates of Reginald Rose and Hugh Wheeler should be looking at Gillian Flynn's novel and ask how much of this this film influenced her novel. We have a neurotic somewhat psychotic wife, Carolyn Jones here channeling Bette Davis, upset and angry with her husband because he refuses to return to New York. She makes a scene at a party implying her husband is a wife beater. Once the stage is set incidents make it appear her husband killed her. The big difference is the band of local children who believe John, Alan Ladd, is innocent and join forces to protect him and help prove he is innocent and if his wife is dead then there must be another killer. And yes, in this film she really was killed. What I find most amusing about the film is its being set in a mythical town in CT that seems a lot like Westport in the 1950's except for the townspeople who have a lynch mentality and don't want to hear the facts that would clear John. But who really did it--yes she was was really killed--her lover or the local sheriff or was it someone else. The ending is a bit of a surprise but all ends well; almost too well.

Words can't describe how bad this film is. I'm gonna try my best though.I'll say right off that Alan Ladd just looks terrible in this. He was in his mid to late 40's and he looked like he was in his 60's. His scenes where he runs looks like he's an old man. I don't know if he wasn't athletic or he was under the influence of something but this performance reminded me of the last film Montgomery Clift did. With the exception of Shane and a few film noirs in the 40's, Alan Ladd was not a very good actor. He's a cigar store Indian in his thing. Looks and even is as wooden as one. Just terrible all the way through.A struggling, use to be art director at an ad firm decides to move to Connecticut country with his wife. She's highly unstable and a drunk to boot. She had a breakdown in New York and he wants to see if the country will help. While he's there he can concentrate on his art/painting. She's feels trapped in the country and wants to go back to New York but he insists on a Psychiatrist visit. She refuses. He gets a job offer from his previous company with better money but he would rather just paint and try and sell his stuff. With this decision, the crux of the film starts. We get a seriously ill woman who does everything to ruin her husband. She does everything imaginable and then.... she gets killed and he gets framed for it. Then the Connecticut lynch mob appears and they want this guilty rascal for all it's worth. It's just a B film all the way folks. The only stand out performance is Carolyn Jones' portrayal of the psychotic alcoholic wife. She really nails it down. Other than that this is just a bottom feeder. There's one scene where he gets a phone call from a friend. After the call ends he leaves the room and you can see a crew members shadow in the foreground of the scene. It wouldn't be too obvious if he didn't walk right by. I mean I thought it was Alan Ladd but nope. Wow, now that's quality editing. I grew up in the south and I've never heard of a lynch mob from Connecticut. I thought people from the north east were progressive and gave people the benefit of the doubt. This guy was an artist and strange so that meant...he guilty...let's go get him.Folks...save your time and run from this thing. To call this thing anything else but bad would sully the name of bad.

The Man in the Net (1959)What a great movie with a flawed Alan Ladd bringing it down. This is toward the end of his career, and he plays his part, of a man falsely accused of a crime, with such deadpan reluctance, you think he's being forced to act. We do feel for him because the plot is so clear about the facts, but we can't really get emotionally involved. The movie around him a late 50s modernity mixed with old school Hollywood pace and mise-en-scene, thanks to veteran director Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca" and "Mildred Pierce"). The real star is the almost unknown Carolyn Jones--almost unknown, except as Morticia in The Addams Family (mid-60 television, for the uninitiated). She played a number of important secondary roles films of the 1950s, but also had a t.v. career, and who know why she never quite made it. But, she shows up here right away and is astonishing, like a young Bette Davis, even with the same wide eyes and snappy mannerisms. She plays Ladd's wife, and at first she seems merely feisty. Then you realize she's a live wire inside, and possibly drinking too much. And then it cracks open from there, and Jones makes the character cunning and yet also weirdly enchanting.The other fascinating turn to the storytelling is the role children play in it all (a little ironic given that the movie promotions say loudly: not appropriate for children). At first the group of five kids, all under 10, are part of the innocence of this little Connecticut town far from the ravages of New York. Then a lot of adult stuff happens, the good stuff really, the stuff that Curtiz has the best feel for. Then the children reappear, and it almost becomes a two layer movie, with the children keeping a kind of fairy tale element to what is a very very horrible situation. In fact, as the townspeople become more and more childish (and cruel), the kids become reasonable and mature.But then there is Ladd. Even reviewers at the time (when Ladd was still riding his star power) remarked that he was all wood and clay (or as Richard Neson said in 1959, Ladd "mutes his personality to the point of unreality"). Even physically he seems a bit awkward, making me think he was getting old, even though he needed to be in his 30s or 40s for the part and was only 45 at the time of shooting.So, this is an odd beast of a film, but a truly interesting one. Even the story has a quirky genesis--the author being listed as Patrick Quentin, which was a pen name for a group of four writers who pounded out popular detective fiction. Certainly anything by Curtiz is worth a look, and the direction, per se, is actually first rate, if we can overlook his handling of his lead male. And the cinematographer is the wonderful John Seitz,which helps with a lot of the scenes (the cave scenes, the party). The movie almost has the potential to be a cult classic, like "Night of the Hunter," but Ladd never was as commanding as Robert Mitchum, was he?

And he's a painter, too. Or IS he? Yikes, this movie has some of the worst art ostensibly painted by an underrated but talented artist ever seen in movies! Ladd gives a dispirited performance. We have a long history with him. So we like his character and wish the best outcome for the trouble he gets in. But LLadd seems to be walking through it.Carolyn Jones is pretty good as his alcoholic wife. She was capable of better. She had an odd look that Hollywood didn't seem to know how to use. (Well, not till "The Addams Family." And it's a shame that's what she's remembered for.) Around this time several movies about adults' friendships with precious children came out. This is one of them. It was probably viewed as charming at the time -- sort of like a man's friendship with dogs or kindness to his own children or to orphans.Today, for better or for worse, a man who spent much of his time with preteen children would be highly suspicious to his neighbors. In the movie, Ladd's character is hounded by the townspeople for possibly having killed Jones. Today he wouldn't have lasted that long in a suburban area like this, hanging around with children.