AllMovie

One of the most definitive films noirs, the suspenseful D.O.A. also features one of the greatest conceits in film history: a man trying to solve his own murder. Not many movies can boast the line, "You've been murdered." The existential anxieties lurking in other film noirs are at the forefront of D.O.A.: the "walking dead man" metaphor is no longer merely a metaphor. The underrated Edmond O'Brien was at his finest as the accountant fighting a fatal, slow-acting poison. The film was the first directorial effort from famed cinematographer Rudolph Maté (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr), and would be his most enduring film. Though the production values were in keeping with B-movies of the time, the stylish black-and-white cinematography of Ernest Laszlo was creative even by expressionistic standards. D.O.A. has been remade twice, first as the average Color Me Dead and then as 1988's vapid D.O.A. (1988).