Dark City

In William Dieterle’s Dark City, three bookies persuade an entrepreneur from Los Angeles to bet and lose $5,000 in a poker game; after the man hangs himself the next day, a murderous stalker shows up to hunt down the three remaining players. In his film debut, Charlton Heston plays Danny Haley, a cocky, angry WWII veteran battling his own psychological demons while evading both the unseen assassin and the matrimonial desires of lounge singer Fran Garland, an incidental girlfriend role for Lizabeth Scott, who tries hard to make Fran more than a prop. Despite a somewhat meandering plot, Dieterle builds suspense through claustrophobic sets and slow-burn reveals, particularly in a masterful sequence where Barney (Ed Begley) awaits the killer’s arrival at his home.