Blind Alley is a 1939 American film noir crime film directed by Charles Vidor and starring Chester Morris, Ralph Bellamy and Ann Dvorak. The film was adapted from the Broadway play of the same name by James Warwick. Columbia Pictures remade the film as The Dark Past in 1948, with William Holden and Lee J. Cobb.

Plot

Prison escapee and murderer Hal Wilson and his gang take noted psychologist Dr. Shelby and his family hostage in their own home. Shelby psychoanalyzes Wilson to reveal that he has an Oedipus complex and that he murdered his father. Shelby surmises that every murder that Wilson committed during his criminal career was another subconscious attempt to kill his father. When the police arrive, Wilson has a clear shot at an officer but sees his father's face and cannot pull the trigger. The police shoot Wilson dead and rescue Shelby and his family.

Cast

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic B. R. Crisler wrote: "Given the present confused state of civilization, the union of Chester Morris and psychoanalysis was probably inevitable; after all, there was no point in these two great artistic and intellectual forces remaining aloof from each other indefinitely. Besides, the rather whimsical experiment of grafting Dr. Freud's facile theory of dream symbols on a typical Columbia melodrama has justified itself admirably ... by producing, on the whole, a rather better-than-typical Columbia melodrama. Henceforward, there is no reason why psychoanalysis should be ashamed of Chester Morris, or even why Chester should be ashamed of psychoanalysis."

Radio adaptation

Blind Alley was presented on The Screen Guild Theatre radio program on February 25, 1940, starring Edward G. Robinson and Joseph Calleia.