The New York Times recapped its plot and continued, "the playing of the story is every bit as ridiculous as its sounds. Miss Sheridan is practically a cipher and Kent Smith, who plays the poor doc, gives a walking representation of a love-smitten telephone pole. Nobody else really figures. This is major picture-making at its worst."
Noir analysis
Critics call the movie one of the best "woman's noir." Film historian Bob Porfirio notes, "Unlike such other Ann Sheridan or Joan Crawford motion pictures as The Unfaithful, Flamingo Road, and The Damned Don't Cry!, Nora Prentiss does not lapse into a romantic melodrama that might detract from the maudit sensibility, the quintessential element of film noir."