Absorbing, ultimately dark crime (?) yarn which unfolds like a good book (one chapter after another) and leads to a sudden, shocking ending. Susan Hayward is a knockout - we even get to briefly see her in a 1940s version of the bikini! *** out of 4.

A fascinating account of complications, when a man cultivates his weakness for mistresses to constant points of no return... The real star here is Susan Hayward, although Robert Young is convincing enough in his desperate situation of confusion caught in a web of unfortunate turns, for which he blames and sentences himself, as any loving man would do, while it's impossible to judge him, while all his innocent dames are equally totally innocent... No one could expect any of all this to happen, least of all the victims. The force of the intrigue is the dialogue and the intelligent turns of the story, a fascinating labyrinth impossible to guessd at what it will offer next, and the crown of the piece is the dialogue between Robert Young and Susan Hayward.It's a great, concise and explicit noir, told with stringency and realism, and all you can say afterwards is, poor fellow...

At the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles, a murder trial is underway; Lawrence Ballentyne (Robert Young) takes the stand. He is charged with the brutal murder of a woman. A flashback, which covers most of the movie, tells a story that begins on a hot summer day in New York. Although Ballentyne is married to Greta (Rita Johnson), he has a mistress, Janice Bell (Jane Greer). Ballentyne was ready to leave his rich and influential wife and relocate to Montreal with Janice, but wife Greta knew of his plans and sabotaged them by convincing him to move to California with her. Greta's enticement was to buy her husband a limited partnership in a brokerage firm. Ballentyne promptly dumped Janice. Everything was fine for six months, until he spotted an office employee, Verna Carlson (Susan Hayward). He says, "She looked like a very special kind of dynamite, neatly wrapped in nylon and silk . . . I was powder shy." Before long though, the conniving Verna bails out Ballentyne, who was in a jam with his boss, Mr. Trenton (Tom Powers). After that Ballentyne is into a relationship with her. Events happen, like Ballentyne accidentally bumping into Greer at a restaurant (Hmmm).Eventually Ballentyne decides to go away with Verna to Reno, but his car is struck by an out-of-control heavy truck. Verna is promptly killed and her body burned beyond recognition, while Ballentyne ends up in a hospital. The investigating police believe it was his wife Greta who died in the accident. Ballentyne goes along with the story and soon recovers. After a few events pass, wife Greta commits suicide at a canyon near her ranch. Ballentyne finds her body and the note that he wrote to her in which he explained that he was leaving her for Verna. Although he left her body to decompose, the police eventually discover it. But they soon wonder about Verna. When Ballentyne travels to Kingston, Jamaica, he again unexpectedly runs into Janice Bell. Back in LA, he says he feels like the "bait." He should be uneasy, as Janice is setting him up for the police, who are convinced he murdered Verna. They believe in a motive: Verna must have been blackmailing him. The flashback over, we return to the courtroom trial and Ballentyne's dilemma. The ending is a real grabber, and the last two words provide a twist to this noirish thriller. The acting is fine all around, although the four lead characters are not particularly likable. Top-billed Robert Young is especially good even though he is cast against type; he does not overplay his role as a charming womanizer. After his movie career, he successfully moved into television and among other performances, had two terrific series with "Father Knows Best" (1954-1960) and "Marcus Welby, M.D." (1969-1976). Susan Hayward appeared in many movies, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. After receiving several Oscar nominations for Best Actress, she finally won the award for "I Want to Live" (1958). Jane Greer was the classic femme fatale in "Out of the Past" (1947). Anthony Caruso, a character actor who racked up over 250 movie and TV credits, has a brief role as a hardened hospital patient.

THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME is an inventive, interestingly-played-out narrative involving a womanising husband who finds himself implicated in various murders. His story is told in flashback via his testimony in the courtroom, giving the viewer the opportunity to act as the jury and work out whether he's indeed guilty or not.Some of the story feels gimmicky but in this case the gimmicks work, leaving this a fresh-feeling tale whose outcome you can never predict. It's also a film-noir with a difference, in that the characters aren't all as adulterous, blackmailing and dastardly as in most films of this genre; many, in fact, are relatively decent.Robert Young makes for an engaging hero and the various love interests of the tale are all as attractive as you'd expect for a movie of this era. It's not exactly a story that will set the world on fire, but as a watchable film THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME works well enough.