text: I've read all the complimentary posts on this muddled semi-noir and am puzzled at the high regard for what seems, in the cruel light of 2007, a very sloppy late-RKO assembly-line product. All that endless documentary footage of fish, waves, fish, waves has little to do with the central conflict and just pads the running time. The editing is downright careless: Scenes just end, and are followed by other scenes that have little to do with what preceded them. The dialog bears the stilted traces of the Odets origins: high-flown metaphors that never could have come from the limited imaginations of these workaday people. But what's really surprising is how horribly overacted the triangle is, on all sides. I love Stanwyck, but she snarls and contorts and lashes out wildly -- an undisciplined performance several notches below her standard. Douglas, overplaying at being lovable, then goes onto a would-be murderous rampage and is similarly hammy, as is Ryan, snarling and shouting most unnaturally. The less interesting second couple at least provides recognizable human behavior: Keith Andes, whose character is kind of a Neanderthal by today's standards, nevertheless is smooth and persuasive as Stanwyck's (much younger, one presumes) brother, and Marilyn Monroe, as his girlfriend, is natural and unaffected. On Monterey's windswept coast (and all that Monterey footage, while largely irrelevant, is interesting as a document of what the town looked like), amid all the overheated hysteria, these two are islands of sanity. A final point, and a spoiler: Perhaps the Breen Office mandated it, but does anybody believe the happy ending for a second? Stanwyck may temporarily have regressed into being an obedient wifey, but I give the marriage a month.