Burgess Meredith makes probably his greatest performance and is completely convincing as the man in the awkward position of having lost all memory of the latest year of his life and finds himself hounded by hoodlums and eventually wanted for murder. Claire Trevor is less convincing as the lady involved, who wants to get away with him and help him abscond whatever it is, while the character stirring the tale and bringing it up to excitement is lame old grandma (Adeline De Walt Reynolds), who can only communicate with her eyes but does so the more. As the thriller develops, it grows more exciting and gripping all the way, and as usual the truth is a shocker - everyone is innocent except the least suspected. Burgess Meredith's experience of this nightmare situation of a lifetime, like being locked up blind in a cage of wolves or worse, that is killers or the electric chair, couldn't be made more realistic by his acting, as this outrageous strain forces him to extreme rationalism, which is exactly the normal human reaction in such circumstances - you set in a higher gear, and thus he manages to make his way out of the death trap of innocent ignorance caught in hopeless darkness of hopelessness. It's a small great film with plenty of stuff for afterthought.

This movie hits all the buttons for Film Noir, and I'm willing to call it so. there are lots of earlier movies with elements that finally fused together to make Film Noir, and many movies that almost hit it around this time (like THE MALTESE FALCON), but Noir was a movement, and it's not leaders that make movements, it's followers, like Jack Hively, the B director of this one.Burgess Meredith is walking down the street when he is knocked down by some rubble from a demolition job. When he gets up, he finds a cigarette case and hat with the wrong initials, and when he goes home, wife Louise Platt tells him he has been missing for more than a year. He goes to the office to get his job back, only to find Sheldon Leonard in hot pursuit. When he goes back to the part of town where he regained his memory, there Claire Trevor is, telling him to get off the street. He's her man and he's wanted for murder.It's based on one of Cornell Woolrich's overwrought crime novels and, as usual, Burgess Meredith plays a nice, amiable fellow, rather wasted. Claire Trevor has all the good lines, and Sheldon Leonard is fine in a straight role. Despite that voice, meant for Runyonesque hoods, he was a good actor.If the answer to the mystery is milked a bit to make the movie last a few minutes longer, the answer still came as a surprise to me. I expect you'll enjoy it, not only for its early, pure Noir, but for a fairly played, if mildly hysterical, mystery.

"Street of Chance" is an old movie that was meant as a B-movie. In other words, a shorter and cheaper film to accompany the main feature. So, even though the story is filled with some silly cliches, I could look past this because the movie wasn't intended to be perfect...or anything close to it!Frank (Burgess Meredith) is walking down a city street when debris from a building falls on him. He's mostly okay...mostly. Although he hasn't broken any bones, he has broken his brain. In other words, he has amnesia and can't remember who he is and has trouble remembering recent details of his life. Eventually, he learns that he's wanted for murder....and he's determined to prove his innocence. To help him with this is a woman (Claire Trevor) who tells Frank she's his girlfriend. But can he trust her or anyone else??The notion of getting bonked on the head and developing an all new personality is popular--particularly in 1950s and 60s TV shows. In reality, such accidents and reactions are rare. Again, I wasn't trying to say it was believable...just mildly interesting and mildly entertaining.

This film has no connection whatever with a film of the same title released in 1930, and starring William Powell. This film is about a man, played by Burgess Meredith, who at the beginning of the film is shown being hit on the head in the street by a collapsing builder's rig. He is apparently uninjured, but in fact he is concussed and believes he is named Frank Thompson. He pulls a cigarette case out of his pocket and he is puzzled that it bears the initials D.N. He notices that those same initials are inside his hat. He rushes 'home' only to discover that the apartment is empty. He discovers that his wife has moved away, and his 'return' to the building is greeted with surprise. He traces his wife and she welcomes him enthusiastically, but when he starts talking about how she reminded him not to forget his muffler on the way to work that morning she points out that it is summer, not winter, and that she has not seen him for a year, since he left her without explanation. These amnesia stories are always very intriguing, since loss of awareness of one's own identity is a kind of metaphor for the existential condition. As Paul Gauguin said: 'Who are we …?' In fact, the true nature of identity is one of the deepest of all mysteries. That is why I have a particular fondness for amnesia films. The central weakness of this film is that Burgess Meredith, however good he is at looking confused because of his amnesia, lacks romantic appeal entirely. Thus, when the lovely Lousie Platt as his wife professes her undying and passionate love for him, and is ecstatic at his return, I stirred uneasily. Burgess Meredith just is not the kind of guy that women slobber over. Then Meredith discovers what the initials D.N. stand for: he has for the past year been living a different life under the name of Danny Nearing. And as Danny, he has been then object of the hysterical affection of film noir glamour gal Claire Trevor. Now, come on! What is the casting gag here? Did somebody with a really wicked sense of humour decide to pair these two? It's like throwing a cold, wet, and limp dishrag into the arms of hottie Claire. Burgess Meredith has about as much erotic intensity as a clam. And he is also the object of the apparent violent hatred of a man who seems to be a gangster, played by the ever-ominous Sheldon Leonard, who shoots at him as he scurries up a fire escape with Claire. The fact that Leonard turns out to be a policeman rather than a hood is only small comfort, since, as we soon discover, 'it's complicated'. The film is based on a story by Cornell Woolrich, one of Hollywood's major mystery writers, known for instance for NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948, see my review). The director was Jack Hively, who did three 'Saint' films. This film would have been so much better with a more appropriate leading man. I hate to be so critical of Burgess Meredith, who was such a fine actor in so many films, but here the error in casting is simply disastrous. Otherwise, putting that central calamity aside, the film is entertaining and of interest.