Where Danger Lives
Dr. Jeff Cameron (Mitchum) saves an attempted suicide victim (Domergue) brought to San Francisco General Hospital. She checks out, but sends a telegram telling him her name, Margo, and address. To his surprise, he finds she lives in a mansion. He breaks a date with his nurse girlfriend, Julie (Maureen O'Sullivan), because he is worried Margo may try to commit suicide again.
Jeff falls in love with Margo and they begin seeing one another. Told she is flying to Nassau with her aged father the next day, a tipsy Jeff shows up unannounced and boldly tells Frederick Lannington (Rains) that he is in love with the man's daughter. Lannington informs him that Margo is his wife. A stunned Jeff leaves despite Margo's pleas. When he hears a scream, he returns and finds her holding an earring ripped from her ear. Lannington starts beating Jeff with a fireplace poker; in the ensuing struggle, Lannington strikes his head on the floor and is knocked unconscious. Dazed, Jeff goes to the bathroom; when he returns, he finds the old man dead.
Jeff wants to call the police, but Margo insists they would believe it was murder. Capitalizing on the fact that Jeff's judgment is impaired by his injuries, she persuades him to run away with her. They first try to use the airline tickets, but spot policemen at the ticket desk. They decide to drive to Mexico instead, taking the precaution of trading in Margo's convertible for a pickup truck provided by larcenous used car salesman "Honest Hal." Jeff diagnoses his continuing headaches and mental fog as a concussion, warning Margo that it will lead to first paralysis of the extremities, followed by a coma within 24 to 48 hours.
In Postville, Arizona, they are taken to the sheriff, but only because Jeff is not wearing a beard for the town's "Wild West Whiskers Week." After Margo explains they are on their way to Mexico to get married, the police chief (Charles Kemper) tells them that marriages are a Postville specialty and insists they get wed there. In their honeymoon suite, Margo hears a radio broadcast about them that discloses she had been undergoing psychiatric treatment. After the couple sneaks away, the police chief identifies Margo from a photo and alerts the border patrol. It is revealed that Lannington was smothered to death with a pillow.
In a border town, the fugitives sell Margo's $9,000 bracelet to a pawnbroker for $1,000. Seeing they are anxious to avoid the police, he sends them to theatre owner Milo DeLong (Philip Van Zandt), who offers to smuggle them into Mexico for $1,000. As they wait, Jeff's left side becomes paralyzed. Then he finally realizes that Margo is mentally unstable and that she killed her husband. He decides not to go to Mexico; when he tries to stop Margo from leaving, she knocks him down, then smothers him. Fortunately, he was only rendered unconscious. He drags himself downstairs and out to the border crossing. When Margo sees him coming, she pulls a pistol out of her purse and starts shooting at him. The police return fire, fatally wounding her. Before she dies, she absolves Jeff of any blame.
While recovering, Jeff asks his doctor if he can send flowers to someone. The doctor steps out into the hall and sends Julie in to see him.
insanity, violence, murder, romantic