Dr. Metablog

In High Wall (1947), an extremely noir-y noir, Stephen Kenet, played by an unusually glamorless Robert Taylor, suffers from a fully credible traumatic amnesia. Did he, or did he not kill his wife. He can't remember.

So far so good. Happens all the time in such films.

But he's cured of his affliction in a most unlikely, most unscientific  manner. He's injected with "truth serum" –  sodium pentathol — and what was once lost is found. Such easy recovery of memory could ruin dozens of amnesia movies.  Good thing the treatment never caught on. 

The gimmick spoils an otherwise grainy, hard-edged film. 

Here's Kenet (Taylor), and Ann Lorrison, played by Audrey Totter. They're good as patient and doctor, but unpersuasive when they emerge as lovers in the last scene.