..good plates, an extra fork," but she continues serving and says "nothing" is wrong.Sensing Marion""s uneasy frustration, Shane compliments her on the "elegant dinner." When Shane excuses himself, Joey instantly worries that the enigmatic stranger might leave forever ("he didn""t even say goodbye"), but his father reassures him that Shane wouldn""t leave without his gun holster hanging on his chair ("He wouldn""t go without takin"" hat").She experiences heightened ecstasy as she nods affirmatively and rocks back and forth on her chair while listening to her husband""s crude provocations that he has a list of 207 card-carrying Communists working for the Defense Department:I have here a list of the names of 207 persons who are known by the Secretary of Defense as being members of the Communist Party.The flooding of the region after the completion of a dam construction project alludes to the purification and cleansing of the sins of the world by the Great Flood.The screenplay for the film, written by Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay, and Robert Rossen, was based on an original screen story by Mark Hellinger.