Edward Dmytryk's Obsession (1949)

It is safe to say that the HUAC trauma, if it did foster Dmytryk's neurotic dispositions, did not create them, as they can be traced almost to his earliest works.  Sado-masochism, for instance, which is rampant in The Hidden Room [the American title for Obsession] and The Sniper, was already a dominant feature in Murder, My Sweet and Cornered and even in some of his "B" movies.

Jean-Pierre Coursodon, American Directors Volume II (McGraw-Hill, 1983)

Dmytryk was one of the "Hollywood Ten" cited by the House Committee on Un-American Activities for Communist Party membership in 1947, at which time he fled to England, where he made Obsession, written by Alec Coppel from his novel A Man About a Dog.  The film has four main characters: Dr. Clive Riordan (Robert Newton), Storm Riordan (Sally Gray), Bill Kronin (Phil Brown) and Scotland Yard Superintendent  Finsbury (Naunton Wayne), as well as a dog, Monty, that has an important role in the plot.  Clive is tired of Storm's affairs so he kidnaps her lover Bill and holds him prisoner in a bombed-out building for months, planning to kill him eventually and destroy his body in a bath of acid; he enjoys telling Bill his plans.  But Storm's dog finds Clive so Monty is also imprisoned by Clive and Finsbury comes looking for the dog.

 Dmytryk is excellent with the actors:  Clive is effectively low-key in a James Mason way; the estimable Sally Gray fights back intensely; Bill handles his imprisonment sardonically; Naunton Wayne is persistent and intelligent; Monty is adorable and a quick learner.  The film is an interesting crime story but, like most of Dmytryk's films, lacks an appropriate visual style.  Most of Obsession takes place at night and is well filmed in black-and-white by C.M. Pennington-Richards but lacks the fatalism and psychological depth that would make this a film noir (and the somewhat sappy ending doesn't help).

Incidentally, Dmytryk's passport expired after he made Obsession and he returned to the United States, where he received a prison sentence of six months.  While serving his sentence he agreed to testify before HUAC and named names, the only one of The Hollywood Ten who testified as a friendly witness in order to work in Hollywood again.  Dmytryk made a couple of dozen more mostly mediocre movies until retiring in 1975; he died in 1999 at the age of 90.