As an artist who has been known to exercise a fertile imagination, Jean Cocteau is disappointingly unimaginative in "The Storm Within."…

M. Cocteau, who herein is inspecting the amours of a singularly unstable family, merely has come up with a series of tempestuous harangues, hysterical outbursts, nebulous soul-searchings and petty plots signifying nothing especially new about either sacred or profane love. And, despite a generally proficient cast, "The Storm Within" is, anomalously, a static drama, which talks a great deal about emotions while projecting little of same….

"The Storm Within" is only a tempest in a teapot.

A. H. Weiler, "'The Storm Within'," in The New York Times (© 1950 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), April 24, 1950, p. 21.