Pun Salad

Otto Preminger directed this 1945 film noir; I've read that it was made as a result of his success with the previous year's Laura. Dana Andrews is in it, playing a down-on-his-luck hustler, tossed off a bus in the big nowhere between Los Angeles and San Francisco. He gets himself involved with a mentalist conman, then when that's done, finds himself obsessed with a seriously slutty waitress, played by Linda Darnell. This leads him to attempt a scam on the rich spinster sisters in town, one happens to fall for him, then there's a murder, and guess who gets set up for the rap?

It's pretty convoluted and ludicrous, with dialog so stilted, it could have been written in a stilt factory. But there is a kind of neat ending, worth hanging on for.