Beware, My Lovely

Robert Ryan is effectively menacing in this drama of a loner ("Wilton") who takes a job as a factotum at the home of the sympathetic, recently widowed "Helen" (Ida Lupino). He suffers from a paranoia that leads him to believe that everyone is against him - and given the suspicious-looking opening scenes of the movie, that includes the audience too. When she finds herself alone in the house with him, the doors and windows locked and the telephone ripped from it's socket - we all begin to fear for her safety. Ryan was frequently quite a wooden actor, but here he cleverly portrays the character with much more psychology to his sense of threat that just the sheer physical (though there is a little of that, too). Harry Horner manages to build the sense of peril really quite well, interspersed only by a few interruptions by visiting kids who might, or might not, offer her a route to safety from the prison that is her own home. The ending is also interesting - not quite what you might expect, either. Lupino and Ryan work well together, here - it's well worth the watch.