Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Laura Warren I'm a huge Dorothy McGuire fan and had was initially excited at discovering a film noir that I hadn't yet seen. About twenty minutes in I realized why I've never heard of this one. It's actually painful to watch. I really don't like any of the characters and have given up at 59 minutes. Just don't care what happens. For me, this is a first.

mark.waltz How can you not love Dorothy McGuire? That haunting face who played so many scared little waifs, troubled but sweet romantic heroines and long-suffering wives and mothers has a hallmark on what screen ladies should be like. She was pretty, not a glamour girl, had eyes that would draw you into wanting to protect her, and would make you feel as if you've known her all her life. But even a star like her has to have at least one fiasco, and this Republic thriller is it. As the mother of an 18 year old girl, she covers the ground of my last description of her archetypes, but in playing a troubled lady in distress, goes back to the scared little waif, here not a young girl anymore but one so troubled by her past that she instantly gains your concern for her. It's just a shame that she's surrounded by one of the worst screenplays I've ever seen filmed and has to deal with the most unbelievable plot devices outside a 1940's serial.It's made apparent in the first scene that something or someone is stalking her, and at this point it's O.K. It's "The Spiral Staircase" all over again. But when she goes to local sheriff Edgar Buchannan and asks for a gun and gives no reason (and he simply gives one to her without question!), the eye roll begins and doesn't stop until the film is at its end. It turns out that McGuire, now a local newspaper editor, is being stalked by her snarling estranged husband (Stephen McNally), and flashbacks detail of how they courted, married, fought over his life of crime, and how she escaped from that by escorting a girlfriend (Carolyn Jones) on a trip, only to be thought of as dead when a girl he brought home somehow blew up. Now she's a respected member of this sagebrush community with a pretty 18 year old daughter (Mary Murphy) who tells her about a stranger she met who indeed turns out to be McNally, freed after 18 years in prison allegedly for killing her!When a suspense film as stupid as this stops being suspenseful because you are either laughing or shaking your head constantly at it, you know you've come across a real dog. McGuire gives her best shot to the ridiculous plot, but at times, you really want to shake her character and tell her to "shoot the bastard!". Somehow, her gun (hidden in an unlocked bedroom bureau) turns into a snake, ends up in the hands of a local youth accused of murder, and McGuire leads McNally on a chase to an old Indian burial ground where she intends to kill him so her daughter won't find out what kind of psychopath fathered her. I can appreciate the lavish imagination utilized to create such a plot, but it's one ridiculous twist right after another, and with nobody figuring out the connection between McGuire and McNally, is filled with the stupidest characters outside of a cartoon. In fact, with its desert mid western setting among mountains and caverns and canyons, it begins to take on the feeling of a Road Runner/Coyote short. McGuire even turns over an envelope of money to her daughter's boyfriend "just in case something happens to her". I've seen some bad films in my time, but unless you are a writer and don't want this to happen to you, this is one to "Make Haste to Avoid".

Spikeopath Make Haste to Live is directed by William A. Seiter and adapted to screenplay by Warren B. Duff from the novel written by Gordon and Mildred Gordon. It stars Dorothy McGuire, Stephen McNally, Mary Murphy and Edgar Buchanan. Music is by Elmer Bernstein and cinematography by John L. Russell.A gangster is sentenced to prison for killing his wife, but she isn't dead, she's alive and well and raising her daughter in New Mexico. It's now 18 years later and he's out of the big house; and he wants revenge!Elmer Bernstein's superb musical score opens up the picture and Russell uses film noir filters to photograph the gripping opening sequences. It's a handsome beginning, the promise of a film noir gem is palpable, sadly the entire middle hour is plodding in pacing and ridiculous in plotting. There's some neat touches, McNally is permanently angry and sinister, which makes for good fun, McGuire works hard to maintain interest, Buchanan's gruff sheriff steps outside of the norm and the odd scene, such as that involving a fairground, have noirish leanings. The finale as well is of high quality, but patience is tested throughout and there's the over riding feeling that the cast, Bernstein, Russell and the audience deserve a far better script. 5/10

Martin Teller When her gangster husband is paroled, a woman fears for herself and her teenage daughter. Sounds like a good "out of the past" premise, but turns out to be a tepid thriller. There are brief hints of danger but they fizzle out, with Stephen McNally being a rather non-threatening presence and Dorothy McGuire uneven in her characterization. One minute she's haunted by nightmares, the next she seems quite comfortable with the situation. This thing just has no guts to it. What kind of movie teases the audience with a bottomless pit and then denies them the payoff? I've heard of Chekhov's Gun, but Chekhov's Hole? A nice score by Elmer Bernstein is wasted on this humdrum do-nothing picture.