PodBill Just what I expected

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Martin Teller I've had about enough of amnesia stories. It's just a goofy premise and is rarely satisfying, unfortunately it pops up in noir far too often. This one doesn't do anything that original with the concept, and is riddled with plot holes and unanswered questions, but at least it's done with some panache. Thanks to an excellent cast of pulpy characters and terrific cinematography by Franz Planer, it carries the feel of classic hard-boiled noir. There is one fantastic sequence where a tied-up Peggy Castle crawls across a warehouse floor at gunpoint to lay a steamy smooch on our hero, Anthony Quinn. However, I don't care much for Spillane's brand of misogynistic maschismo. This isn't Mike Hammer, but it might as well be, with him throwing punches at every guy he meets, and every gal throwing themselves at him. So while it's probably a real treat for Spillane fans, it's not my cup of tea (or glass of bourbon).

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) Mickey Spillane was far better than what people use to give him credit for. His tough guys and sexy, deadly women gave a new life to the private eye novels of the fifties. This is a surprisingly good, forgotten film directed by Victor Saville, who also directed the famous flop "The Silver Chalice". Also a top cinematographer Franz Planer. The story is about Johnny McBride (Anthony Quinn), a man that lost his memory and also his fingerprints. McBride was involved in stealing 250000 dollars from a bank, together with a woman named Vera, who changed her looks and name. There are two remarkable moments in the film, first when the gangster Servo (Gene Evans) has all four women suspected of being Vera together, and then when the beautiful Venus (Peggy Castle) with long blond hair,tied up, drags herself to kiss McBride. Spillane's characters belong to a fantasy pulp, world and there resides their charm.

bmacv Contemporaneous with the noir cycle came the rise of the cheap paperback, bringing lurid crime novels with provocative cover art to racks in drugstores and bus depots. Spearheading this pulp revolution were the scribbles of Mickey Spillane, several of which became films: I, The Jury; The Long Wait; My Gun Is Quick; and Kiss Me Deadly – the only indispensable title among them.The Long Wait remains anomalous in that Spillane's thuggish protagonist, Mike Hammer, makes no appearance. Anthony Quinn hitches a ride in a car which promptly plunges into a ravine and bursts into flame. In the fire, he loses both his fingerprints and his memory. After two years working in an oil field, he's sent on a wild-goose chase to his home town, unaware that he's wanted for the murder of the District Attorney, who was prosecuting him for embezzling a quarter-million. His cauterized fingertips force the police to release him, but other parties want him dead. But he forges ahead with a two-pronged quest: to vindicate himself, and to find the girl he's told he once loved. She used to be called Vera – shades of Moose Malloy and Velma in Murder, My Sweet (Farewell, My Lovely) – but now she's...somebody else. The four prime candidates for Verahood (Peggie Castle, Mary Ellen Kay, Shawn Smith and Dolores Donlon) become pasteboard targets at which Spillane can spew out his misogynistic venom. They're nothing more than scheming nymphos, throwing themselves at Quinn despite any prior arrangements they've made to insure their kept-women comforts. Inevitably they're terrorized and slapped around. The movie's most visually arresting sequence (thanks to cinematographer Frank, or Franz, Planer) proves also its most sadistic: in an abandoned factory, lit with Expressionistic panache, Castle, bound with rope and under the muzzle of a gun, crawls across the floor to give Quinn a final kiss. Aficionados of film noir must, of course, grapple with the nettlesome problem of the femme fatale, the alluring but heartless Lilith who brings men gladly to ruin. But The Long Wait preserves an unregenerate, macho view of womankind that surpasses the merely dated or distasteful. It's a movie about the corruption of a small city that never questions the corruption of its own vision.

DianaGal One professional reviewer calls this film "meandering, actionless." I'd call it complex and psychological, with well-developed characters and some memorable dialog. It is quintessential film noir with a torrid romance thrown in. You have to suspend your disbelief to buy it, but you'll gladly toss it away and revel in the intensity of it's emotions and unexpected plot twists. It's not just a battle of wits with dangerous adversaries, it's a hero's quest for truth and a search for lost love. You're kept guessing as to the finish right until the end -- more importantly, you care how it ends. I saw it at least a half dozen times back in the 1950s and 60s. I'd like to see it again and discover if it's as good as I remember it -- or whether I was just a hormone-charged teenager with a crush on Anthony Quinn. ;-)