Disappointing

Lang was painfully circumscribed by lummoxes in Hollywood, to whom he ruefully handed his balls to continue to work at all, there being no film industry to speak of anywhere else on Earth in those years. On his masterpieces in Germany he thought nothing at all of going well over budget, taking as much time as he needed to get it right and bankrupting the studio if necessary. His greatest films reveal to anyone curious enough to look of his jaw-dropping genius. Godard's best film imo Contempt, in which Fritz plays a director called Fritz Lang, reveals his attitude of surrender to dictatorial moneymen, without whom he directs nothing post-UFA, including Ministry of Fear, which he took on to drive home the point of the NSA & CIA of its time.

~ Native Angeleno

You definitely get the feeling that Lang was frogmarched through this film. Not only is the feel very plastic (barring Ray Milland, who's actually not bad), the set design and the overall look of the film is bordering on cartoonish. None of those sets looks anything like London, especially wartime London. They are straight out of Los Angeles or New York. The huge rooms and wide corridors of all the interiors are way off. They look like they were designed by someone who'd never seen the place and just took a guess at what "English" would look like.

Lang's direction seems to have been designed to put people off. He obviously wasn't enjoying himself. Marjorie Reynolds might have been cute but her acting is awful. In fact, it's so bad it might be deliberate. The scene where she wakes up in the underground and rubs her eyes is just pathetic. It's almost like a kid's pantomime. The person who plays her brother is equally plastic and the chemistry is completely structured.