It ' s one of my favorite true crime mystery movies because it focuses on the evidence and detective work , and it doesn ' t spoil it ' s own reveal the way so many other mysteries do . However , there is one scene which everyone seems to love which I think should have been either cut , shot differently , or been better explained . The scene where the cartoonist goes to question the old theater owner who employed the primary suspect , and the theater owner takes him to his house to talk . The scene begins with a strange bit of unease and the tension rises pretty sharply till it reaches a climax where you ' re pretty sure the theater owner is involved in the murders , or at least crazy in his own way . So what comes from it ? . Nothing . The scene rises to a crescendo , but it leads nowhere because it ' s never brought up again . If you ' re questioning someone associated with a prime suspect and they behaved that way you ' d be investigating them further . Instead the cartoonist just shrugs it off and moves on . It turns one of the most tense scenes of the film into a total red herring .