Lots to think about here re: the symbolic power of the gun, how it completely dominates the film and the two men at its center, the terror it commands and the emasculation it perpetrates. Lupino seems interested in the fragility of masculine performance in the face of an object that is itself representative of that performance's power. Also intrigued as much by her wide shots (alternately exacting in their detail and stark in their enthralling simplicity) as by her close-ups (particularly of Talman, whose every bit of stubble seems to radiate smug malice). Maybe it's just me but she seems like a real good director.