Richard Brooks achieved quick success as both a screenwriter and a novelist, but when he turned to directing he found the going much tougher initially. His first two projects as director, the sub-Hitchcockian thrillers Crisis (1950) and The Light Touch (1951), were sourced in women's magazine fiction, the rights to which had previously been purchased by M-G-M, then ruled by the legendary Louis B. Mayer, with whom Brooks had signed the long-term contract that would decisively shape his early career. Because he was an experienced screenwriter, M-G-M was willing to grant him this limited control over story, thinking that he would get the most out of what he had been given. Shot and then completed with no notable difficulties, Crisis and Touch demonstrated that Brooks could see to more or less scheduled conclusions projects that turned out to be somewhat suspenseful and entertaining, with characters who are far from unengaging. He ably directed the star performers (Cary Grant and Stewart Granger) in the lead roles; in Touch he oversaw effectively the substantial contributions of the established headliner George Sanders and sensational newcomer Pier Angeli.

For whatever reason, however, Brooks proved unable in both cases to remedy (or at least mask) effectively the weaknesses of what he adapted for the screen. Commenting on the myriad narrative problems in the “pulp magazine story” screened in Crisis, Bosley Crowther offered the director a backhanded compliment: “it is remarkable that Mr. Brooks has been able to get any substance of even passing consequence on the screen.” This judgment is perhaps a bit harsh since it slights the film's effective staging of the crise morale, à la Graham Greene, endured by Cary Grant's surgeon, Dr. Eugene Ferguson. On vacation with his wife in Latin America, he has been kidnapped to perform a life-saving operation on a brutal dictator, Raoul Farrago (José Ferrer). Helen Ferguson (Paula Raymond) has in turn been abducted by Farrago's political opposition, who tell him that her life is forfeit if Ferguson does not let his patient die. True to his oath, Ferguson does his best, but Farrago dies anyway, and later Helen is released. Director and star found themselves as part of a story that, if compelling, at numerous points could have made better sense. Miscasting might have been part of the problem.