The sweet Donna Reed is not a name most noir fans would associate with the cycle. Indeed, when her character is introduced during the second act of Edward Buzzell’s The Get-Away, her first feature film, the tone change is palpable and establishes a lighter second act in which romantic attraction alters the story’s criminal trajectory. Having plotted and executed a successful, down-to-the-wire prison break, inmates Sonny Black (Dan Dailey, Jr.) and Jeff Crane (Robert Sterling) hole up in a house while Black recuperates from the gun wound he sustained during flight. Unaware that he’s a murderer, Maria Theresa O’Reilly (Reed) sets out to track down Black, her estranged brother, but encounters Crane by chance instead, sparks flying more or less immediately, and will ultimately find herself torn between the two men with life-or-death stakes. Based on a script co-penned by W.R. Burnett, one of noir’s most prolific screenwriters, the film features not one but two impressive plot twists which compel viewers to rethink all that has come before. Using MGM’s notable resources, Buzzell and crew admirably create a wide variety of sets and set pieces that elevate the drama: an enormous prison mess hall erupting into a food fight, a bridge collapse submerging a car full of characters, a violent brawl on a garage car lift, a fabulous nightclub dancing sequence, an extremely bloody machine gun battle during the climax. The Get-Away is a hugely entertaining film that deserves reassessment as an early noir specimen.