The Sign of the Ram is a 1948 American film noir directed by John Sturges and screenplay by Charles Bennett, based on a novel written by Margaret Ferguson.

[2] The film's title alludes to people born under the astrological sign Aries (the Ram), who are supposedly strong-willed and desire to be admired, as explained in the dialogue.

The film marked Susan Peters's return to the screen after a three-year absence following an accident that permanently paralyzed her.

Leah is a poet, confined to a wheelchair due to an accident when she rescued her step-children (by Mallory's first wife) from drowning.

Leah also tries to subvert that relationship by claiming that Catherine, an adoptee, came from a family afflicted by mental illness and cannot dare to pass it on to any children the couple might have.

"[3] Since the story concerned a poet in a wheelchair, it was thought to be an ideal comeback vehicle for Susan Peters, who had been injured in a hunting accident near San Diego on 1 January 1945 that permanently paralysed her.

She had an incomplete film The Outward Room which MGM wanted to reshoot to incorporate Peters' accident but she persuaded Louis B. Mayer otherwise.

And by directing Phyllis Thaxter, Peggy Ann Garner, Allene Roberts and Alexander Knox to hit such a slowness of tempo and such a sombreness of tone that the whole thing drifts into monotony, he has only emphasized the static qualities.

In February 1948, Irving Cummings announced that Signet's next movie would be a romantic comedy, Paris Rhapsody, based on a script by Charles Bennett.

She separated from her husband Richard Quine in March 1948 and made a TV series, Miss Susan (1951), and toured in two stage plays, The Glass Menagerie and The Barretts of Wimpole Street.