It's unusual to see Dorothy Lamour in a serious role as a victim with a fatherless child, outcast at the mercy of deceivers and crooks. Dan Duryea is more abominable than ever, his name on the list is enough to prepare you for a grim session of hatred of his person, while the other characters are actually rather comical, especially Art Smith as detective Dawson. It's really the comic traits that save the film. Sterling Hayden is always good and here as an insurance agent, while the murder case is intriguing enough.A well off author keeps dreaming about killing his awful wife, his dreams are so disturbing that he goes to a psychiatrist, who advises him to take enough sleeping pills to be knocked off. In his dreams he beats her to death with a perfume bottle while she is taking off her multi fortune jewels, and while he is knocked off his wife is actually murdered in that very way and her jewels stolen. The only certain thing about the murder is that her husband didn't do it since he was knocked off.It's an interesting intrigue that keeps your interest growing until things get off hand towards the end, when Dan Duryea runs off the rails and makes a mess of his own perfect set-up. It's not a great noir or thriller, but it certainly is odd and original and worth seeing at least once, mainly for the police comedy. The music is very good.

Considering the cast and story, it's unfortunate that director Lewis Foster could not end up with a real film noir. Dan Duryea is up to par playing a sleazy double-crosser but Sterling Hayden is wasted as an insurance investigator who spends most of his time standing around or tagging along with the cops. The always reliable Alan Napier is a highlight of the film playing the stoic, self-righteous jilted husband.The attempts at humor along the way relegate the film to the realm of a 1930's murder mystery, not a serious noir. There certainly was a lost opportunity for something better. Nevertheless, any film with Duryea and Hayden is worth a watch.

Alton Bennet, an unhappily married writer, is getting horrible nightmares about a crime he is about to commit. Bothered with his sleeplessness, he goes to get help from a psychiatrist. What he doesn't suspect is that he has engaged an unscrupulous professional who wants to capitalize on what he has learned during the sessions with the unsuspecting patient. Like confession, for catholics, there is a secret bond between patient and analyst that is sacred. Violating that trust proves to be the wrong thing to do, as one will learn later on.The action centers around a shady character, Karl Benson, who has an interest in acting up on what he learns from the psychiatrist's secretary whom he helped get a job with the conniving Dr. Redman. Both Benson and Redman are after the expensive jewels of the writer's wife. Benson is a scheming scum bag who will do everything possible to get to keep the loot, betraying, and implicating the woman who innocently tells him of what transpired in the office.Lewis Foster directed this seldom seen movie. Dan Duryea, who played a lot of seedy characters during his career, fares the best in the cast. A young Dorothy Lamour is seen as a woman who has fled her home and an abusive husband. Sterling Hayden appears as the representative of the insurance company. Art Smith is excellent as the detective in charge of the investigation."Manhandled" is a somewhat dated curiosity worth seeing because of the work of Dan Duryea.

Overall, I was fairly disappointed in Manhandled. The best part about it was Dan Duryea, who played his usual oily self and is always a pleasure to watch. The plot of the film was satisfactory as well, involving a rich woman's coveted jewels, her murder, and a melange of would-be killers. But Dorothy Lamour is miscast as the leading lady and adds little to the production, and a running gag between a police detective and his partner is not only tiresome but also out of place. The film did offer several notable elements of film noir, however, including the opening sequence, in which a man dreams that he bludgeons his wife to death with a perfume bottle, and a later scene in which a duplicitous doctor is run over -- repeatedly -- by a car. Still, I'd probably place this one way down on my list of film noir must-sees.