Mirage

Edward Dmytryk ("Murder, My Sweet"/"Cornered") directs an excellent diverting thriller in luminous black and white, scripted by Peter Stone (wrote "Charade") from a novel by Howard Fast (the director's old prison buddy from their Hollywood Ten days). It has a no-nonsense Gregory Peck playing David Stillwell, a scientist suffering from shock that caused him to have amnesia. The confused David is first seen on the stairwell of NYC's Unidyne Building, a giant organization involved in nuclear manufacturing, during a blackout, for some reason thinking he's a cost accountant, when he runs into a pretty woman named Sheila (Diane Baker) who seems to know him but he can't remember her. At the same time in the same building renown world peace activist Charles Calvin (Walter Abel) falls from his 27th-floor window, in what the police believe is a suicide. David is in a daze and has blacked-out two years of his life, not even remembering that he worked for Calvin and was his good friend. When David tries to get answers, everything possible is done to try and deceive him. "Mirage" turns out to be a well-executed suspenseful exercise in concealment and discovery, that unfolds with political implications that unfortunately go unexplored over nuclear testing. Peck's own production company along with Universal, financed the film.