5 Steps to Danger

We first meet John Emmett (Sterling Hayden) when he's having his car towed. He says he is from LA and is going on vacation and to see relatives in Texas. We never find out what he does, or why he seems to have some money, or for that matter hear from or see anybody he knew separate from this plot. He is impulsive enough to just sell his broken but rather expensive car for cash - but he does dicker for price - and he is impulsive enough to accept Ann Nicholson's (Ruth Roman's) offer to share a ride with her as far as Santa Fe and share the driving although she is a total stranger.

From that point the suspense ratchets up as John is first confronted by a nurse who is working for Ann's psychiatrist who says Ann has just had a nervous breakdown and needs to be watched, and is stopped by cops who say Ann is wanted for murder, and then hears Ann say she actually has military plans she smuggled out of East Germany that she needs to deliver to some old family friend who is working for the government in Santa Fe. John is very trusting about all of this when it comes to Ann, and you wonder why he doesn't insist they go to the police right away but he doesn't.

From that point it is a swirl of people who could be spies or could be on the side of the US government, or maybe Ann really is crazy, and the tension and suspense never lets up.

Eddie Muller of TCM's Noir Alley said he'd like to think that Hayden's rather unexplained character is actually Johnny Clay from "The Killing", which he made right before this film, having escaped the cops and on his way to a new life. I found the film very suspenseful and engaging, even if you have to suspend your beliefs on how somebody would act in John Emmett's position.