Others have commented accurately about the pitfalls of this interestingly premised but thinly executed jumper negotiation picture. Basehart is adequate and the hall of fame supporting cast (Jeffrey Hunter, Grace Kelly, Barb Bel Geddes, Agnes Moorehead, Debra Paget, Howard Da Silva etal) struggles gamely to avoid the dive into the pavement the script soon takes. Worth special mention, however, is the splendid perfomance by usual character actor Paul Douglas as Charlie Dunningham, rescuing this otherwise mediocre flick and making it watchable. Watch for a young Jeff Corey as a uniformed cop who mugs shamelessly but has little to do. How eerie that Grace Kelly and Jeffrey Hunter would both be cut down tragically so early in life.
SPOILER WARNING: Once you've seen this movie, consider that the original ending featured Basehart succeeding in his suicide but because of the tragically similar suicide of one of the producers' children the week this picture opened, the studio quickly pulled and re-edited the movie to settle on the happier ending as a gesture of sensitivity. The original much bleaker version is not known to exist but if you watch the ending carefully, you'll notice that the actor on the net is NOT Basehart, who was not available for reshooting at the last minute. A shame that the original version may not exist; the writer was capable of stingingly fatalistic noir and this might have been a much different movie had it been left intact.
SPOILER WARNING: Once you've seen this movie, consider that the original ending featured Basehart succeeding in his suicide but because of the tragically similar suicide of one of the producers' children the week this picture opened, the studio quickly pulled and re-edited the movie to settle on the happier ending as a gesture of sensitivity. The original much bleaker version is not known to exist but if you watch the ending carefully, you'll notice that the actor on the net is NOT Basehart, who was not available for reshooting at the last minute. A shame that the original version may not exist; the writer was capable of stingingly fatalistic noir and this might have been a much different movie had it been left intact.