Instead of a fallen angel, one critic called Novak's B-girl of the slums an "angel to the fallen". As the girlfriend trying to hold on to Frank Sinatra's junkie-on-attempted-cold-turkey, she has a thankless task at best; and as an actress it was even more of a thankless task to try and hold her own against Sinatra's bravura performance and the even more overwhelming score by Elmer Bernstein which, in retrospect, is arguably the most memorable element of the film. Nonetheless, Novak shows a touching mix of both strength and vulnerability as a woman caught in the middle between two men (Sinatra and co-star Richard Conte) on their way to the bottom, courtesy of drugs and alcohol. Andrew Horn
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