A fine film noir ,mainly in its first part : after the murder of her husband ,the wife escapes and wanders in the streets of the town , where every inhabitant is a living threat (close shots on the face) .She becomes the first suspect and the headlines of the newspapers mention her name and her photograph for all to see .

The second part is more conventional , in the tradition of Agatha Christie (but not as brilliant as her plots) ,where the detective knows the name of the murderer but has no evidence , the gathering of all suspects to set a trap to catch him ....It occurs just after WW2 ,and there is a hint at Himmler's and Goering's suicides ,because the victim was actually murdered twice...

The flashbacks reveal a hateful victim,who took his lover at home and imposed a menage à trois to her wife ; and not only the distraught wife ,but other people had motives to get rid of this go-getter : the husband's brother in love with his sister-in-law; the cousin ,Olle, who has a crush on her too and wants to run the business; the aunt ,a past master in poisons for she used to work in a pharmacy ...... Eva Henning has a Hitckockian look , which brightens up this mist.

Continuing to cross over the ICM Nordic viewing challenge with a cinema of the 1950's taking place at the same time,I checked my downloads of the year, and from the few details I could find, made me curious to learn about what is in the fog.

Note:Some spoilers in review.

View on the film:

Driving away from the opening believing she is speeding towards a new life, Eva Henning gives a fantastic performance as Lora, whose on the run status allows Henning to dig into a Femme Fatale nervousness of being seen, which Henning twists into shallow relief, as a new perspective on what's she did unfolds in front of Lora's eyes. Sipping up the toxic state of their relationship in flashbacks, Georg Rydeberg gives a wickedly slippery turn as Lora's hubby Walter, whose wealthy life Rydeberg uses to keep a underlying hold on menace on his wife.

Featuring a exchange where the Film Noir Laura is discussed, Vic Sunesson's adaptation of his own novel takes a oddly disconnected view of Lora being on the run, where as Lora's fear of being caught is raised, little space is given to raising the tension of those who are searching for her. Neatly twisting Lora's belief of giving out the killer shot with a sly twist, Sunesson brings the family back together for a tense dining room gathering, serving up slow-cooked flashbacks on the hate they shared for Walter.

Leaving the clear vision of what Lora's done under looming shadows, director Lars-Eric Kjellgren & cinematographer Gunnar Fischer stylishly drill into a brittle Film Noir atmosphere, digging into Lora's fear with terrific coiled side-shots keeping her just at the edges from being seen. Attending the family reunion, Kjellgren brings into focus the murky family secrets with dissolves peeling away to the flashbacks revealing who is hidden in the fog.