It was in a regular rotation of Sunday afternoon TV movies when I was a young kid that included Casablanca, King Kong (the Fay Wray version), Hitchcock movies and others like that. I didn't understand it at first, but on subsequent viewings I started to get all the subtle hints along the way on how it would end. I was cheering for Burt Lancaster's character the whole ride, thinking the people he met along the way were crazy.
I'd always assumed it was set in California but it was Connecticut.