Two of Warners favorite thriller actors worked together nine times in just a few years. This mystery tale is their last pairing, and also the first feature film directed by Don Siegel. Victorian sleuth Sydney Greenstreet gets an assist from his artist friend Peter Lorre when a murder victim is found in a room locked from the inside. How did the killer get away?  Don Siegel’s work is sharp, making the most of the studio’s high production values. The tightly directed suspense tale also stars Joan Lorring, whose saucy nightclub entertainer teases Lorre’s character by calling him ‘Vicky.’

The Verdict
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1946 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 86 min. / Street Date January 27, 2026 / Available at MovieZyng / 24.98
Starring: Sydney Greenstreet, Lorre, Joan Lorring, George Coulouris, Rosalind Ivan, Paul Cavanagh, Arthur Shields, Morton Lowry, Holmes Herbert, Art Foster, Clyde Cook, Creighton Hale, Milton Parsons, Ian Wolfe.
Cinematography: Ernest Haller
Art Director: Ted Smith
Special Effects and Visual Effects: Robert Burks, William McGann, Russell Collings
Film Editor: Thomas Reilly
Costumes: Travilla
Montages James Leicester
Music Composer: Friedrich Hollander
Screenplay by Peter Milne from the novel The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill
Executive Producer Jack L. Warner
Produced by William Jacobs
Directed by Don Siegel

We all like director Don Siegel; we kids first learned of him through  Invasion of the Body Snatchers, then  Dirty Harry, then through his  excellent films noir. We soon learned that Siegel mentored other directing talents, including Clint Eastwood. He gave Sam Peckinpah his start as a script supervisor, and he also advised a very young Michael Reeves, before that director’s very brief filming career.

In many respects Don Siegel was an up-through-the-ranks studio employee, known as a go-to name for fancy montage work at Warners. The factory system categorized anything to be shot that didn’t need the big stars and sets as ‘additional material,’ from close-ups of notes being written to extraneous action and transition shots. Siegel started getting screen credit for transition montages in 1939. It wasn’t just shots of newspaper headlines or calendar pages flipping. Siegel might work with 2nd unit crews on something like  They Died With their Boots On, directing horses and troops moving, or somebody running in with a telegram. It was ‘shot grabbing’ work — Siegel’s dailies might be shown with those of the 1st unit, and judged on the basis of how well they followed the storyboards … or improved on them. Siegel did everything. He edited montages and worked with the experts in opticals and rear-projection. He’d likely be assigned to do screen tests as well, depending on schedules.

Don Siegel moved up to directing near the end of the war. His was a special case, as directors more often had extensive stage experience. He must have been well-liked, and also cost-efficient to earn that directing nod. In quick succession he made two short subjects. Both won Oscars for their producers, which didn’t hurt.

Don Siegel’s very first feature directing credit was for 1945’s  The Verdict, a small but polished production dreamed up to exploit the popularity of actors Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Their eccentric villains in  The Maltese Falcon had become instant screen favorites. Warners slotted them into other exotic mysteries, like  Casablanca and  The Conspirators. But they also made three pictures where the two could claim main star status —  The Mask of Dimitrios,  Three Strangers and this last feature.

The Verdict comes from a property that had already been filmed twice by Warners. It’s a fairly believable variation on the ‘locked room mystery,’ that detective fiction sub-genre in which a sleuth is charged with solving an apparently impossible crime. The actors were likely highly pleased to be playing against type. Greenstreet is Police Superintendent George Grodman, a man of unimpeachable integrity. Lorre is Victor Emmric, an artist and bon vivant who drops into Grodman’s flat often for drinks and good conversation. They’re always congenial company. Emmric is successful as a ladies’ man, even. Of course, if either one lets slip a single furtive look, we immediately wonder if they’re guilty of something.

There’s no need to get too deep into the story. Grodman loses his prestigious police position over a scandalous error – his evidence results in the conviction and execution of an innocent man. It’s a political decision that doesn’t take into account the awful set of events that prevented everyone from seeing the truth. His successor is Buckley (George Coulouris), a career climber overjoyed at his colleague’s downfall. Grodman takes to his flat to finish writing his memoirs; Emmric steps in to sketch the book’s illustrations.

The original crime is still unsolved. Everybody we meet is a suspect with a potential connection to the female murder victim — her son Arthur Kendall (Morton Lowry) is an irresponsible wastrel and cad. Kendall has a spurned sweetheart, cabaret performer Lottie Rawson (Joan Lorring). He’s been giving her fake jewelry as gifts; she makes a public show of her anger. Kendall’s political enemy is the liberal spokesman Clive Russell (Paul Cavanaugh). Russell keeps getting caught fibbing about his movements, supposedly to hide the identity of a lover.

The story source is a novel, but the setup would make us guess it was written as a play. All the male suspects live in rooming houses directly across from each other. Landlady Vicky Benson (Rosalind Ivan) noses about, listening at doors and venturing opinions on everyone’s affairs. She reveals a suspicious side when she objects emotionally to a corpse being exhumed.

The corpse is that of a second victim, which brings in the ‘locked room’ detective puzzle. The stuffy new Superintendent Buckley is soon stymied, as any explanation just seems impossible. Grodman enjoys watching his successor squirm, but takes an interest in the case as well. The work involves probing into Kendall’s background, checking the alibi of Russell, and wining & dining Lottie Rawson in search of her secrets. It’s pretty cute seeing the drunken Lottie teasing ‘playboy’ Emmric and calling him ‘Vicky.’ Lorre doesn’t overplay or make faces, as he sometimes did in later haunted house stories. The truth be told, things only got better when he pulled faces and ad-libbed.

It’s a straightforward tale. We see Lottie perform a cabaret number, which is all right (Ms. Lorring does her own singing) but a little cheap; instead of a music hall we see a smallish salon. Much of the movie takes place on a single interior-exterior set of a London street, one of those clever constructions with a narrow roadway and seemingly infinite opportunities for camera angles. Don Siegel’s direction enlivens everything. The camera is always moving, and never just to ‘keep the frame busy.’ His crane shots often begin and end on significant elements in the frame. From a camera POV, we never feel we’re looking at a budget production. For all we know, Siegel’s good rep on the lot got him things the budget might not call for, like that big crane.

To make sure that Lorre and Greenstreet stand out as stars, the casting really can’t go for top-rank supporting actors that would be just as ‘big’ as our leads. Cavanaugh and Lowry are fairly colorless, but Rosalind Ivan is one of the better ‘flighty matrons’ of the era. She gets a nice bit, posing for an artist of a police gazette- type tabloid. Arthur Shields has one scene as a priest and Milton Parsons is an undertaker, no surprises there.

Pretty Joan Lorring projects an air of intelligence despite sometimes talking like Eliza Doolittle from  Pygmalion. Lorring had also costarred with Greenstreet and Lorre in Three Strangers.  She apparently made no big splash, and is now known to film studies types as the actress who stuck with director Joseph Losey during his most troubled year, appearing in his  last American film and his first  film in exile, shot in Italy with Paul Muni. There were few rewards in working for a blacklisted director.

As we might expect from Don Siegel, The Verdict is very precise filmmaking. The editing is spot-on, visual continuity is excellent, and the transitions between scenes are elegant without being too show-offy. Siegel puts a smart picture together, and he has a pair of actors that keep things interesting even without a strong love interest.

Did the Warner brass decide that the public preferred these favorite actors as villains?  Sydney Greenstreet would be a slimy cad for both  Joan Crawford and  Clark Gable. Peter Lorre continued playing noir schemers. He tried  directing in postwar Germany and would enjoy a career high point with  Walt Disney. Becoming a jobbing supporting star with a kooky personality earned a living, but it didn’t fulfill Charlie Chaplin’s earlier statement that Lorre was the greatest film actor working.

Don Siegel’s two pictures for Warners gave him the boost to get a directing career going. It took him the better part of a decade to find real traction, working for several studios and even doing TV. He made a  fine RKO picture with Robert Mitchum but apparently didn’t click with Howard Hughes. His first newsworthy success was 1954’s  Riot in Cell Block 11 for Walter Wanger at Allied Artists. He always had a good industry reputation, but his public profile didn’t take off until teaming with Clint Eastwood on  Coogan’s Bluff.  When Eastwood launched his own directing career, he generously gave credit to Siegel as his mentor.

The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of The Verdict gives us a beautiful remaster of this atmospheric period piece with starched collars and horse-drawn coaches. Cinematographer Ernest Haller does nice work in the smoky interior sets, and we’re told that special effects cameraman Robert Burks shot some first-unit material as well. Burks would be given cinematographer credit on his next film. He gained attention for his steely ‘futuristic’ look on  The Fountainhead. When Alfred Hitchcock came to Warners, he adopted Burks as his cameraman of choice, and used him on his stellar classics all the way through Marnie.

Burks and Siegel open and close the film with a fine show-off camera move. The view cranes into the window of a bell tower. That interior is a rear-projection of a bell-ringer at work, and he has a window behind him that’s a rear projection as well. The four-or-five-generation composite is grainy but still pretty effective.

We like it when the Warner Archive people have fun with the extras. Both cartoons on view use caricatures of Peter Lorre as a mad scientist … in one, his scary castle holds a flashing neon sign reading ‘Mad Scientist.’ Hair-Raising Hare is the classic with Bugs Bunny chased by a big hairy monster (sometimes called ‘Gossamer’) that likes getting its nails done: “My, I bet you monsters lead interesting lives.”

The Merrie Melody Birth of a Notion sees Daffy Duck taking refuge in a house where mad scientist Peter Lorre is in dire need of a duck’s wishbone for an experiment. It’s not as well known, but is pretty good too, with excellent character animation.

And Peter Lorre fans have a treat in three full radio shows, titles and dates below. Sydney Greenstreet is in one of them. Lorre had a reputation for being adept in radio and live shows, so I’m looking forward to listening to these.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Verdict
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Very Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Merrie Melody Hair-Raising Hare with Bugs Bunny, Peter Lorre
Merrie Melody Birth of a Notion with Daffy Duck, Peter Lorre
3 radio programs with Peer Lorre:
Black Sea Gull from ‘Inner Sanctum’, March 7 1943
Til Death Do Us Par from ‘Suspense’ December 15 1942
Stamped for Murder with Sydney Greenstreet from ‘New Adventures of Nero Wolfe’ October 20 1950 .
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: March 19, 2026
(7477verd)

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