[The film""s story was based on a real-life crime in March of 1927 perpetrated by married Queens, NY housewife Ruth (Brown) Snyder and her lover, a 32 year-old corset salesman Judd Gray.As the independent-minded, individualistic Emma was getting in the car with her family to move from Houston, Texas to Des Moines, Iowa, away from her managing mother, she told her:Mama, that""s the first time I stopped hugging first.The message of director John Sturges"" taut and influential film can be interpreted with different levels of meaning, but predominantly as the tense portrayal of a one-armed stranger who intrusively has arrived in a half-forgotten desert town filled with ruffians.The opening image shows a flat, paved highway road in rural Oklahoma lined by telephone poles.A small figure walks out of the distance toward the camera.At a crossroads (a symbol of America""s plight in the late 30s), one of the poles at the left of the frame leans dramatically askew.He selected an open-collared, patterned shirt and ight polyester bell-bottom pants for his planned evening out at he dance club.