Stranger on the Third Floor

Reporter Michael Ward is the key witness in a murder trial. His evidence – that he saw the accused Briggs standing over the body of a man in a diner – is instrumental in having Briggs found guilty.
Afterwards Ward's fiancee Jane is worried whether Ward was correct in what he saw and Ward becomes haunted by this question. Next, Ward's neighbor is killed the same way as the man in the diner, but Ward is arrested for trying to point this out to the police. As a result, Jane goes out to try to clear Ward by finding the sinister stranger that Ward saw on the stairwell.

Rising reporter Michael Ward is a key witness in the murder trial of young Joe Briggs, who is convicted on circumstantial evidence while swearing innocence. Mike's girl Jane believes in Joe and blames Mike, who (in a remarkable sequence) dreams he is himself convicted of murdering his nosy neighbor. Will his dream come true before Jane can find the real murderer?

Mildred Pierce

Set in Glendale, California, in the 1930s, the book is the story of a middle-class housewife, Mildred Pierce, and her attempts to maintain her family's social position during the Great Depression.
Mildred separates from Bert, her unemployed husband, and sets out to support herself and her children. After a difficult search she finds a job as a waitress, but she worries that it is beneath her middle-class station. More than that, she worries that her ambitious and increasingly pretentious elder daughter, Veda, will think her new job demeaning. Mildred encounters both success and failure as she opens three successful restaurants, operates a pie-selling business and copes with the death of her younger daughter, Ray. Veda enjoys her mother's newfound financial success but increasingly turns ungrateful, demanding more and more from her hard-working mother while openly condemning her and anyone who must work for a living.
When Mildred discovers her daughter's plot to blackmail a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy, she kicks her out of their house. Veda, who has been training to become an opera singer, goes on to great fame, and Mildred's increasing obsession with her daughter leads her to use her former lover, Monty (a man who, like Mildred, lost his family's wealth at the start of the Great Depression), and his social status and connection to bring Veda back into her life. Unfortunately for Mildred, this means buying Monty's family estate and using her earnings to pay for Veda's extravagances. Mildred and Monty marry, but things go sour as her lavish lifestyle and neglect of her businesses has dramatically affected the company's profits. Creditors line up, led by Wally, a former business associate of Bert's, with whom Mildred had a brief affair upon their separation. With no one to turn to, Mildred confesses to Bert that she has been embezzling money from her company in order to buy Veda's love.
Having decided that the only course of action is to ask Veda to contribute some of her now considerable earnings to balance the books –  and fearing that Wally might target the girl's assets if they are exposed –  Mildred goes to her room to confront her. She finds Veda in bed with her stepfather. Monty reproaches Mildred for using him to bring Veda back and for her attitude to him as a financial dependent of hers, while Veda affects boredom but joins in to chide Mildred for embarrassing her and taking glory in her success. Mildred snaps, brutally attacking and strangling her daughter, who now appears incapable of singing and loses her singing contract.
Weeks pass as Mildred moves to Reno, Nevada, to establish residency in order to get a speedy divorce from Monty. Bert moves out to visit her. Mildred ultimately is forced to resign from her business empire, leaving it to Ida, a former company assistant. Bert and Mildred, upon the finalization of her divorce, remarry. Veda travels to Reno and apparently reconciles with Mildred but, several months later, Veda reveals that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York City with Monty. The "reconciliation" (which had been accompanied by reporters and photographers) was designed to defuse the negative publicity resulting from the affair with her stepfather and it emerges her apparent loss of her voice was a ploy so that she could renege on her existing singing contract and be free to take up a more lucrative one offered by another company. As she leaves the house, a broken Mildred, encouraged by Bert, eventually says "to hell" with the monstrous Veda, and the pair agree to get "stinko" (drunk).

When Mildred Pierce's wealthy husband leaves her for another woman, Mildred decides to raise her two daughters on her own. Despite Mildred's financial successes in the restaurant business, her oldest daughter, Veda, resents her mother for degrading their social status. In the midst of a police investigation after the death of her second husband, Mildred must evaluate her own freedom and her complicated relationship with her daughter.

Private Hell 36

L.A. police detectives Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran) and Jack Farnham (Howard Duff) get in over their heads when they decide to split up thousands of dollars they found on a recently killed counterfeiter. To make matters worse, they are assigned by their police captain to look for the missing cash.
Things get even worse when one cop gets romantically involved with Lili Marlowe (Ida Lupino), a money-hungry nightclub singer. Farnham decides to turn honest and hand the money over to his superiors, but the other cop decides to take it all.

Two detectives are investigating a robbery in which $300,000 was taken. Their investigation leads them to the main player and they find the cash, but one of them has meanwhile fallen hard for a woman with expensive tastes, and though he desperately wants to keep her, he knows that a cop's salary isn't going to be enough for her.

So Dark the Night

So Dark the Night is the story of a detective, Henri Cassin (Steven Geray) from Paris, who, while on a long overdue vacation, falls in love with innkeeper Pierre Michaud's daughter Nanette (Micheline Cheirel). She is a country girl with a jealous boyfriend. Nonetheless, the detective becomes engaged to her. Then, the night of her engagement party, the girl vanishes and later turns up dead. Cassin believes that the obvious suspect is Leon (Paul Marion), the old boyfriend, but soon he is also found killed. Soon after Mama (Ann Codee) receives a warning that she will be the next to die, she is found strangled.
Pierre, fearing for his safety, decides to sell the inn. Henri returns to Paris and, because of his investigative skill, he is able to come up with a sketch of the killer by expanding and elaborating on information provided by a footprint found beside Leon's body.
To Henri's astonishment, the sketch bears the exact likeness of himself, and when he fits his shoe into the footprint, he realizes that he is undoubtedly the killer. After making a full confession to the police commissioner, Henri is evaluated by a psychiatrist, who determines that he is schizophrenic. Though placed under watch of a guard, Henri escapes back to St. Margot, where he tries to strangle Pierre. However, the police commissioner, who has followed Henri to the village, catches the detective in the act and shoots him.

A renowned and relentless Paris detective takes his first vacation in eleven years at a small inn in the French countryside. There he meets and falls in love with the hotelier's daughter, who had been betrothed to a neighboring farmer, but who hopes to marry him and move to Paris. On the evening of their engagement, both the fiancée and the farmer disappear. What has happened to them? Who is responsible? Can the famed detective apply his talents to a rural mystery?

Please Murder Me

Defense lawyer Craig Carlson (Raymond Burr) buys a pistol at a pawn shop and travels to his office, where he deposits the gun in a desk drawer with a file folder, then begins to dictate into a tape recorder. Directing his message to District Attorney Ray Willis (John Dehner), he reveals that he anticipates being murdered within an hour, and begins to tell his story in extended flashbacks.
The memories begin with him explaining to his war buddy and best friend Joe Leeds (Dick Foran) that he is having an affair with Leeds' wife Myra (Angela Lansbury), who wants a divorce. Joe asks Craig to give him a little time to think the matter over. Days later at his own office, Joe finishes writing a letter and gives it to his business partner Lou Kazarian to mail. Joe phones Myra telling her he will be home soon to discuss something. There, he confronts Myra in their bedroom, where a door is closed and a gunshot is heard. Police investigate Joe's death. Myra explains that Joe became irate and threatened her physically, forcing her to shoot him in self-defense. Craig is also on the scene, having arrived before the police and acting as Myra's lawyer.
In the ensuing trial, DA Willis allows the police to present their evidence that a physical struggle did not occur as she'd said. Willis notes that Myra was not employed when she first met Joe, a successful businessman with a good amount of life insurance. In her defense, Craig attributes Myra's inconsistencies regarding the night in question as post-traumatic hysteria. In his closing argument, Craig claims the money motive in Willis' case is not valid because Myra was in love with another man — a revelation that could inspire Joe to cause Myra premeditated harm. Craig then reveals that he himself is Myra's lover.

A lawyer wins an acquittal for his client, a woman accused of murder. After the verdict, he finds out that she indeed did commit the murder and manipulated him to win her acquittal. Guilt-ridden, and knowing that she can't be tried again for the murder, he devises a plan to bring her to justice.

The Killer That Stalked New York

Arriving at New York City's Pennsylvania Station after a trip to Cuba, Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes), who is smuggling $50,000 worth of diamonds into the country, realizes she's being followed by the authorities. She mails the diamonds to her husband, Matt Krane (Charles Korvin), instead of carrying them around, and then tries to shake the Treasury agent following her.
Feeling sick, Sheila nearly faints on the street, so a cop takes her to a local clinic. While there, she encounters a little girl and inadvertently infects her. Sheila is misdiagnosed as having a common cold, and she leaves and returns home. After the girl is admitted to the hospital, she is found to have smallpox.
Meanwhile, Matt has been cheating on Sheila with her sister, Francie (Lola Albright), and then attempts to take off without either of them when the diamonds finally arrive through the mail. Unfortunately for him, the fence cannot buy the diamonds because they are too hot. Matt will have to wait for ten days for the cash, so he cannot leave New York. Sheila confronts Francie, who kills herself afterward due to Matt's betrayal of them both. This gives Sheila more reason to get revenge on him.
Finding a growing number of smallpox victims, city officials decide to vaccinate everyone in New York to prevent an epidemic, but quickly run out of serum. This causes a panic in the city. Tracking the victims, agents realize that the disease carrier and the diamond smuggler are one and the same. However, an increasingly sick Sheila continues to elude capture. Still unaware that she has smallpox, she returns to the doctor at the clinic to get more medicine. The doctor explains her illness and tries to talk her into turning herself in, but she shoots him in the shoulder and escapes.
Sheila eventually catches up with Matt, who tries to escape from the police, but falls from a building ledge to his death. Sheila nearly attempts to drop herself from the ledge, until the doctor tells her the little girl she met had died. Remorseful, Sheila turns herself in and, before succumbing to the disease, provides authorities with a badly needed list of those she contacted.

Sheila Bennett returns to New York from Cuba, carrying $40,000 worth of smuggled diamonds...and smallpox, which could start a devastating epidemic in the unprotected city. Treasury agent Johnson loses her but keeps doggedly on the trail; while Public Health doctor Wood searches in vain for the unknown person spreading the deadly disease far and wide. Meanwhile, the increasingly ill Sheila is only concerned with her faithless husband Matt, who plans to abscond with the diamonds...

For You I Die

Forced to participate in a prison break, a convict on the run holes up at a roadside diner.

A young convict,Johnny Coulter, serving as a trustee and with only a year remaining on his sentence, is forced to participate in a prison break by one of the hardened criminals. They separate after the break but circumstances bring them together again. Johnny and a waitress, Hope Novak, fall in love and, together, they help the law recapture the escapee and his henchmen.

Lonelyhearts

The story opens on a small-town street. A man throws a bundle of papers onto the sidewalk from the back of a truck labeled Chronicle. Adam White (Montgomery Clift) is sitting in a bar when a woman (Myrna Loy) offers him a drink. He refuses, explaining that alcohol seems to be poisonous to him. After talking with her for a while, he learns she is married to William Shrike, Editor-in-Chief of the Chronicle, where Adam is hoping to work. The editor shows up to meet his wife only to find her talking with Adam. When Shrike (Robert Ryan) asks how Adam found him, Adam explains: "I heard there was a bar where newspaper people hang out. I came here since it is the closest to the Chronicle, the only paper in town". Florence Shrike says Adam can write, and he deserves the chance to prove it. Shrike retorts: "OK, so write!" Adam hems and haws momentarily, but then delivers the following story: "The Chronicle is pleased to announce the addition of a new member to our staff. He met the Editor in Chief, who went so far as to insult his own wife in an effort to provoke the new staff member. Instead of punching the editor in the face, he accepted a position on the paper."
Adam tells his girlfriend Justy (Dolores Hart) about his new job. He doesn't tell her about his father, a man named Lassiter, who is doing 25 years in prison for having murdered Adam's mother and her lover. On his first day at the newspaper, Adam is astounded at being assigned the "Miss Lonelyhearts" advice-to-the-lovelorn column. One of his colleagues, reporter Ned Gates, is disappointed, having wanted that column for himself, while another, Frank Goldsmith, openly mocks the readers who seek the column's heartfelt advice.
After a few weeks, Shrike refuses a request by Adam to give him a different assignment. He also insists that Adam personally contact the letter writers to substantiate their stories. Adam randomly selects a letter from a Fay Doyle and meets her. She relates how her husband, Pat, came home from the war crippled and impotent. As they share a lonely moment, Adam and Fay are briefly thrown together romantically. When he declines meeting her a second time, she is furious.
Adam decides to leave the newspaper for good. Justy's father offers her a trust endowment to get their new life under way. At a party in the bar, Pat Doyle turns up with a gun. Adam manages to talk him out of using it. He leaves, whereupon Shrike decides to buy some flowers for his own neglected wife.

Eager to land a journalistic position, Adam White goes to work as an advice-giving newspaper columnist. His editor, Shrike, takes pleasure in browbeating his alcoholic wife Florence for her past adultery, and assigning his employees journalistic jobs for which they have little aptitude or interest. Shrike goads Adam into meeting one of his correspondents, Fay Doyle, a teary, self-pitying woman who makes a play for him. Adam is torn between his loyalty to the newspaper and his girl Justy.

Odds Against Tomorrow

David Burke (Ed Begley) is a former policeman who was ruined when he refused to cooperate with state crime investigators. He has asked hard-bitten, racist, ex-con Earl Slater (Robert Ryan) to help him rob an upstate bank, promising him $50,000 if the robbery is successful. Burke also recruits Johnny Ingram (Belafonte), a nightclub entertainer who doesn’t want the job but who is addicted to gambling and is in debt.
Slater, who is supported by his girlfriend, Lorry (Shelley Winters), finds out Ingram is black and refuses the job. Later, he realizes that he needs the money, and joins Ingram and Burke in the enterprise.
Tensions between Ingram and Slater increase as they near completion of the crime. Burke is seen by a police officer leaving the scene of the raid, and is mortally wounded in the ensuing shootout with local police, so he commits suicide by shooting himself. Slater is insensitive and cavalier about the death of Burke which incenses Ingram. Slater and Ingram begin to fight each other as they try to evade capture by the police. Ingram and Slater escape and run into a nearby fuel storage depot. They chase after each other on the top of the fuel tanks. They exchange gunfire and ignite the fuel tanks and cause a large explosion. Afterwards, their corpses are indistinguishable from one another. The last scene focuses on a sign at the entrance of the fuel storage depot saying, "Stop, Dead End".

Dave Burke is looking to hire two men to assist him in a bank raid: Earle Slater, a white ex-convict, and Johnny Ingram, a black gambler. Both are reluctant; but Burke arranges for Ingram's creditors to put pressure on him, while Slater feels humiliated by his failure to provide for his girlfriend; they eventually accept. But Slater loathes and despises blacks, and the tensions in the gang rapidly mount.

Mister Cory

Cory, a poor Chicago kid with a penchant for gambling, gets a job at a posh Wisconsin resort as a busboy. He takes a liking to glamorous socialite Abby Vollard, who is toying with the affections of rich boyfriend Alex Wyncott.
Sabotaging her motorboat as a ploy to get close to her, Cory swims out to help, only to find Abby's kid sister Jen on the boat instead. She volunteers to assist his effort to win Abby's heart.
Abby mistakenly believes him to be a guest at the resort. She invites him on a trip to New York, but when Cory tries to raise money at a poker game, a guest named Caldwell cleans him out. Abby is offended when she discovers that Cory's only a busboy and walks away for good.
A year later, now in Reno trying to change his luck, Cory crosses paths again with Caldwell, only he turns out to actually be a professional gambler known as Biloxi. An ulcer prevents him from playing, so Caldwell partners with Cory, making him his proxy at the table.
Together they return to Chicago when gangster Ruby offers them a chance to run an illegal casino. Cory sends an invitation to the grand opening to Abby, then slips away with her after fixing it so her fiance Alex can gamble and win. They begin a secret affair.
Cory's behavior grows cruel and calculating, more so after he proposes to Abby and is coldly turned down. Biloxi is disgusted with him and breaks their partnership. Alex, who is now losing heavily at the tables, becomes aware that Abby is carrying on with Cory behind his back. He tips off the cops, who raid Ruby's gambling house. Cory tries to flee, but Alex shoots him in the arm.
Ashamed of his behavior, Cory declines to prosecute. He goes to the airport, where an older and more beautiful Jen unexpectedly shows up and offers to come along.

Cory, an ambitious Chicago slum kid with a knack for gambling, gets a busboy job at a posh Wisconsin resort...where his real purpose is to gamble with the staff and guests and romance rich young ladies. Setbacks follow, but Cory eventually rises to a high position in the world of professional gambling. But he just can't forget the glamorous Vollard sisters. And now he has even farther to fall...

The Naked Kiss

Kelly (Constance Towers) is a prostitute who shows up in the small town of Grantville, just one more burg in a long string of quick stops on the run after being chased out of the big city by her former pimp. She engages in a quick tryst with local police chief Griff (Anthony Eisley), who then tells her to stay out of his town and refers her to a cat-house just across the state line.
Instead, she decides to give up her illicit lifestyle, becoming a nurse at a hospital for handicapped children. Griff doesn't trust reformed prostitutes, however, and continues trying to run her out of town.
Kelly falls in love with J.L. Grant (Michael Dante), the wealthy scion of the town's founding family, an urbane sophisticate, and Griff's best friend. After a dream-like courtship where even Kelly's admission of her past can't deter Grant, the two decide to marry. It is only after Kelly is able to finally convince Griff that she truly loves Grant and has given up prostitution for good that he agrees to be their best man.
Shortly before the wedding, Kelly arrives at Grant's mansion, only to find him on the verge of molesting a small girl. As he grinningly tries to persuade her to marry him, arguing that she too is a deviant, the only one who can understand him, and that he loves her, Kelly kills him by striking him in the head with a phone receiver. Jailed, and under heavy interrogation from Griff, she must convince him and the town that she is telling the truth about Grant's death.
As Kelly tries to exonerate herself, one disappointment follows another, and enemies old and new parade through the jailhouse to defame her. In despair, she is at last able to find Grant's victim and prove her innocence.

Kelly, a prostitute, traumatised by an experience, referred to as 'The Naked Kiss,' by psychiatrists, leaves her past, and finds solace in the town of Grantville. She meets Griff, the police captain of the town, with whom she spends a romantic afternoon. Kelly finds a job as a nurse in a hospital for handicapped children. The work helps her find her sensitive side in the caring and helping of her young patients. Kelly's path towards happiness is thrown amiss, when she witnesses a shocking event, which threatens not just her happiness, but her mental health as well.

The Lady from Shanghai

Irish sailor Michael O'Hara (Welles) meets the beautiful blonde Elsa (Rita Hayworth) as she rides a horse-drawn coach in Central Park. Three hooligans waylay the coach. Michael rescues Elsa and escorts her home. Michael reveals he is a seaman and learns Elsa and her husband, disabled criminal defense attorney Arthur Bannister (Sloane), are newly arrived in New York City from Shanghai. They are on their way to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Michael, attracted to Elsa despite misgivings, agrees to sign on as an able seaman aboard Bannister's yacht.
They are joined on the boat by Bannister's partner, George Grisby (Glenn Anders), who proposes that Michael "murder" him in a plot to fake his own death. He promises Michael $5,000 and explains that since he would not really be dead and since there would be no corpse, Michael could not be convicted of murder (reflecting corpus delicti laws at the time). Michael agrees, intending to use the money to run away with Elsa. Grisby has Michael sign a confession.

Michael O'Hara, against his better judgement, hires on as a crew member of Arthur Bannister's yacht, sailing to San Francisco. They pick up Grisby, Bannister's law partner, en route. Bannister has a wife, Rosalie, who seems to like Michael much better than she likes her husband. After they dock in Sausalito, Michael goes along with Grisby's weird plan to fake his (Grisby's) murder so he can disappear untailed. He wants the $5000 Grisby has offered, so he can run off with Rosalie. But Grisby turns up actually murdered, and Michael gets blamed for it. Somebody set him up, but it is not clear who or how. Bannister (the actual murderer?) defends Michael in court.

Accused of Murder

The nightclub singer, Ilona Vance (Vera Ralston), is accused of murder because she was the last person to see crooked attorney Frank Hobart (Sidney Blackmer) alive. Lt. Hargis (David Brian) attempts to prove her innocence.

When gangland lawyer Frank Hobart is murdered there are two suspects, Ilona Vanve , beautiful nightclub singer, and a hood named Stan , who has been hired by underworld boss Chad Bayliss to kill Hobart. Attracted to Ilona, Lt. Detective Roy Hargis tries to protect her in spite of the growing evidence against her and the pressure put on him by his assistant, Sergeant Lackey. Hargis thinks the case has broken when a dance-hall girl, Sandra Lamoreaux , who saw Stan at the scene of the murder, tries to use this information to blackmail him, and is badly beaten. She manages to talk to Hargis, and her story brings about Stan's capture and conviction for murder. But he didn't do it. It is now up to Hargis to either clear or convict Ilona.

The Gangster

Shubunka is a racketeer, at odds with Cornell, a rival. Shubunka has a girlfriend, Nancy Starr, a showgirl, and offers protection to a New York beachfront cafe owned by Nick Jammey.
A regular customer, Karty, has gambling debts and has stolen money from his brothers-in-law's garage. He begs Shubunka for help but is refused. Dorothy, the cafe's cashier, quits her job, disillusioned by Shubunka's involvement in the rackets and concern for no one but himself.
Cornell wants to take over Shubunka's rackets. Jammey gives him inside information on Shubunka's organization. After a couple of Cornell's men beat him up on a picnic, Shubunka angrily accuses Nancy of having him set up. Karty has disappeared, meantime, but when his frantic wife appeals to Shubunka for help, he again infuriates Dorothy by saying no.
Karty gets into a fight with Jammey at the cafe and accidentally kills him with a skillet. Cornell mistakenly believes Shubunka to be responsible and goes after him. This time Nancy does betray Shubunka, having been bribed with a Broadway stage offer by Cornell.
Shubunka runs to Dorothy for help, but she declines, calling it just deserts for his unwillingness to help anyone else. With nowhere to hide, Shubunka is killed by Cornell in the street, just before the police arrive to place Cornell under arrest.

Chubunka is the self-made head of the rackets in the sleazy boardwalk community of Neptune City, a low-rent version of Coney Island. He has become infatuated with a sultry nightclub chanteuse and lavishes her with gifts and attention, spending money on her that might better go to maintaining his hold on his operation. His obsession with her, as well as his pride, clouds his judgment as Cornell, a much more ruthless hoodlum, moves in on Chubunka's territory, bribes and threatens his associates, and compromises his operation. As if in a Greek tragedy, the petty gangster's weaknesses conspire to cause his downfall.

Hell's Island

After being dumped by his fiancée, hard-drinking and depressed Mark Cormack (Payne) loses his job in the Los Angeles district attorney's office and serves as bouncer in a Las Vegas casino.
A wheelchair-bound stranger, Barzland (Francis L. Sullivan), hires him to locate a ruby that disappeared in a Caribbean plane crash. He lures Cormack into doing the job by telling him it may be in the possession of the very woman who jilted him, Janet Martin (Murphy), who is now married to the pilot of the downed plane.
The ex-detective flies to remote Santo Rosario to find the stone and investigate the mystery. When he finds his old flame, her husband is in prison. Cormack, again falling for Janet, is coaxed into helping him break out of jail.
Her husband shocks Mike by revealing Janet sabotaged his plane, causing its crash, out to collect on his life insurance. Janet also double-crosses Mike, who discovers she has killed a man and has the ruby. Barzland returns but plunges to his death, and Mike watches the police take Janet away to jail.

Down-on-his-luck Mike Cormack is hired to fly to a Caribbean island to retrieve a missing ruby. On the island, possibly involved with the ruby's disappearance, is his ex-girlfriend.

He Ran All the Way

Petty thief Nick Robey (John Garfield) botches a robbery, leaving his partner Al (Norman Lloyd) severely wounded as Nick escapes with over $10,000. Meeting bakery worker Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters) in friendly conversation, when Peg takes Nick to her family's apartment, he decides to take the family hostage until he can escape.
As a manhunt for Nick begins outside, the robber becomes increasingly paranoid. Peg's initial attraction to Nick is overwhelmed by his abusive behavior. Her mother and father plead with Nick to leave, to no avail. He permits Mr. Dobbs to leave for work, warning him of the consequences should the police be contacted.
Still confident that Peg will run away with him, Nick gives her $1,500 to buy a new car. He refuses to believe her when Peg returns and insists the car will be delivered to the front door because she doesn't drive. Nick violently drags her down the stairs toward the exit, terrifying her. Waiting outside is her father, shooting at Nick with a gun. When his own gun drops beyond his reach and Nick orders Peg to hand it to him, she shoots him instead. A mortally wounded Nick crawls outside to the curb, just as his new car arrives.

The uptight and dumb small time thief Nick Robey and his partner and only friend Al Molin steal $10,000.00 from a man, but the heist goes wrong. Al Molin is killed by a policeman and Nick shoots him in the spine. He hides out in a public swimming pool and meets the lonely spinster Peggy Dobbs in the water. Nick uses Peggy to lie low. He offers a ride in a taxi to her and she invites him to her apartment, where she introduces her family to him. When Nick discovers that he killed the cop, he decides to use Peggy's apartment as hideout to wait the police manhunt cool down. When Nick finds that Peggy loves him, he invites her to leave town with him and asks her to buy a used car. However, Nick cannot trust anybody and believes Peggy has betrayed him.

The File on Thelma Jordon

Thelma Jordon shows up late one night in the office of married assistant district attorney Cleve Marshall with a story about prowlers and burglars. Before Cleve can stop himself, he and Thelma are involved in a love affair. But Thelma is a mysterious woman, and Cleve can't help wondering if she is hiding something.
When her rich Aunt Vera is found shot, Jordon calls not the police but Marshall, who helps her cover up evidence that may incriminate her. When she emerges as the prime suspect, Marshall sabotages the prosecution. Thelma Jordon is acquitted. Her past, however, has begun to catch up with her.
Jordon acknowledges that there is a relationship with Tony Laredo, who conceived the scheme for her to commit murder and inherit Vera's jewels and money. Unable to deal with her guilty conscience, Jordon causes a car accident that results in her accomplice's death and her own injury. As she lies dying herself, Jordon confesses the truth to the district attorney. She does not incriminate Marshall, who nevertheless tenders his resignation.

Assistant District Attorney Cleve Marshall, depressed about marital troubles, is drowning his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey when the mysterious and alluring Thelma Jordon walks in to report an attempted burglary. The two become romantically involved and not long afterwards there is a burglary and murder at Thelma's aunt's house. Cleve is drawn further and further into defending and covering up for Thelma. It soon becomes clear that this road will only lead to disaster.

Night Editor

Crane Stewart (Charles D. Brown), the editor of the New York Star, while playing poker with his friends, tells a story about a cop involved in a murder investigation.
In flashback, the editor tells the tale of police lieutenant Tony Cochrane (William Gargan), a family man who cheats on his wife with socialite femme fatale Jill Merrill (Janis Carter). Cochrane and the woman, who is also cheating on her husband, witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron while the couple is parked at "lovers lane" by the beach.
The two can't report the crime without revealing their cheating, a dilemma which eventually leads to bigger troubles. Meanwhile, Cochrane must investigate the killing but is not able to tell anyone he witnessed the crime.

"Night Editor" was based on the already existing radio program in which a newspaper editor would recount the 'inside story' of some bit newspaper story, and later became a television series: This time, a night editor of a newspaper is telling a story to a young reporter, who is neglecting his job and wife and beginning to drink too much. The story begins as a police detective, although devoted to his wife and young son, has entered into an affair with a society girl, also married, and while they are parked out in the boonies on a lonely road, they witness a murder. The detective, because of the circumstances of being where he is for the reason he is there, does not attempt to catch the killer and does not report the crime. He is later assigned the case and soon realizes that an innocent man is about to take the blame, and the only way he can clear him is to arrest the killer and become a witness against him. The story-teller also has a vested interest in the old case.

Johnny O'Clock

Johnny O'Clock (Dick Powell) is a junior partner in a posh casino with Guido Marchettis (Thomas Gomez). Complicating their longtime working relationship is Guido's wife Nelle (Ellen Drew), who is still in love with former boyfriend Johnny. She gives Johnny an expensive custom pocket watch, the twin of a birthday present she gave her husband, except Johnny's has a romantic engraving on the back.
Johnny gives the watch, along with a rejection note, to Harriet Hobson (Nina Foch), a hat-check girl at the casino, to return to Nelle. Harriet, however, apparently commits suicide using gas. Her sister Nancy (Evelyn Keyes) shows up to find out what happened. She becomes attracted to Johnny. They eventually learn from Police Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb) that Harriet was killed by poison.
Harriet was dating Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon), a crooked cop who is trying to persuade Guido to let him take Johnny's place. When Blayden also turns up dead, Koch suspects that either Johnny or Marchettis is responsible.
Though Johnny tries to resist, little by little, he falls for Nancy. When Koch shows both Johnny and Marchettis Johnny's watch and note, Johnny tells Nancy their relationship is through and takes her to the airport. As he is driving away, however, he narrowly survives a drive-by shooting, and Nancy realizes he was only trying to protect her. She refuses to leave him.
Johnny decides to flee to South America with Nancy, but not before brazenly cashing in his share of the casino. Marchettis pulls out a gun when Johnny's back is turned. They shoot it out; Marchettis is killed and Johnny wounded. Afterward, Nelle offers to testify it was self-defense, but only if he will come back to her. He refuses, so she tells Koch it was cold-blooded murder. Johnny's first instinct is to run away, but Nancy convinces him to give himself up.

New York gambling house operator Johnny O'Clock is junior partner in a posh casino with Guido Marchettis and Chuck Blayden, a crooked cop. But Blayden is trying to cut into the casino's profits and warns Johnny not to interfere with his intention of becoming Marchettis' full partner. Blayden ends his relationship with coat check girl Harriet Hobson, then disappears. Later, Harriet is found dead in her apartment, apparently from suicide. Police Inspector Koch begins an investigation.He questions Johnny, Harriet's sister Nancy, who is infatuated with Johnny, and Johnny's associate, Charlie. When Blayden's body turns up in a nearby river, and when it is learned that Harriet death wasn't suicide but murder by poison, Johnny and Marchettis become prime suspects in both cases.To make matters worse, Pete Marchettis discovers that his wife Nelle is having an affair with Johnny. Out of jealousy, he sends hired gunmen to kill Johnny in a drive-by shooting while Johnny is driving Nancy to the airport. Johnny, now certain that Marchettis has betrayed him, goes to the casino to end their business partnership.

The Square Jungle

Pat Quaid, an alcoholic San Francisco widower, ends up in jail. His grocery-clerk son, Eddie, needs $25 to bail him out. When he can't borrow it, Eddie enters an amateur fight contest and wins it.
Julie Walsh is in love with Eddie, but her father disapproves of the Quaid family, particularly the boy's father, so he makes Julie stay away. Pat Quaid, once a promising prizefighter, urges his son to give it a try professionally. Eddie agrees on the condition that Pat quit drinking.
Eddie decides to adopt his dad's old ring name, Packy Glennon. To train him, the Quaids go to Bernie Browne, who also has had a problem with booze. Bernie's work with Eddie eventually leads to a fight with Al Gorski for the middleweight championship. Julie shows up, but Eddie angrily dismisses her. Pat explains that Julie's dad has recently committed suicide. Eddie chases after her.
Eddie wins the fight and becomes increasingly arrogant. He trains lazily for the rematch with Gorski and is beaten badly. A referee's decision to stop the fight might have saved Eddie from permanent damage or death, but instead of being grateful, Eddie complains publicly that Tommy Dillon stopped it too soon and should be banned as a referee.
In a third and final bout, Eddie beats Gorski mercilessly. Dillon, the ref, doesn't stop it this time. The crowd jeers Eddie when he leaves the ring as Gorski lies unconscious. A depressed Eddie goes on an alcoholic bender with another woman at a motel. He feels "dead inside," but when Julie is able to get him back to a boxing arena, Eddie finds that Gorski and the spectators all have forgiven him.

Grocery clerk Eddie Quaid, in danger of losing his father to alcoholism and his girl Julie through lack of career prospects, goes into boxing. His cop friend McBride finances him; ex-con Bernie Browne trains him. Three years later, he is a challenger for the championship, and Julie re-enters his life. Can she win him back from a predatory blonde? And why does the prospect of Eddie's winning worry Bernie more than his losing?

The Midnight Story

Father Tomasino is stabbed to death. San Francisco traffic cop Joe Martini felt the priest was like an actual father to him. He asks to assist homicide Lieutenant Kilrain in his investigation, but after being rejected, Joe quits the force.
He has a hunch restaurant owner Sylvio Malatesta could be involved. Joe is warmly welcomed by Sylvio's family, however, and falls in love with a cousin, Anna. He hides his past identity as a cop from her.
Something is troubling Sylvio, but the family believes he still misses a sweetheart killed in Italy during the war. Sylvio also has an alibi for the night of the priest's murder, but Sergeant Gillen gets word to Joe that the alibi is a fake.
In a ploy to encourage Sylvio to confide in him, Joe pretends to be a murder suspect himself. Sylvio breaks down and admits to having killed his own sweetheart, then the priest as well after confiding to him about the murder in confession. Sylvio runs into the street and is struck by a moving vehicle. Dying, he begs for Joe's forgiveness.

Beloved priest Father Thomasino is murdered in a San Francisco alley, and the police have few clues. But traffic cop Joe Martini becomes obsessed with finding the killer; he suspects Sylvio Malatesta. Ordered off the case, Joe turns in his badge and investigates alone. Soon he is a close friend of the Malatesta family, all delightful people, especially lovely cousin Anna. Uncertain whether Sylvio is guilty or innocent, Joe is now torn between old and new loyalties.

The Man in the Net

Commercial artist John Hamilton (Alan Ladd) and wife Linda (Carolyn Jones) leave New York and move to Stoneville, Connecticut, in the New England countryside, to escape the bustle of the city and because of John's growing concern about Linda's alcoholism.
John quickly befriends the town's children, but he's treated like an outsider by many of the adults. Linda misses their social life in New York, as well as the salary John made there.
She insists they attend a party at the home of Brad (John Lupton) and Vickie Carey (Diane Brewster), where the guests include another married couple, Roz (Betty Lou Holland) and Gordon Moreland (Tom Helmore), the wealthy father of Brad Carey. A scene is created by an intoxicated Linda, who insults John and lies that he gave her a black eye, confessing to Vickie after the party that she actually fell while drunk. In anger, she tells John she's been having an extramarital affair with a local policeman, Steve Ritter (Charles McGraw).
John agrees to go to New York for a job interview arranged by his wife behind his back. When he returns, Linda is nowhere to be found. A suitcase belonging to her is spotted by a city dump. Unable to find John's wife, police and neighbors suspect him of murder. Villagers stone his house. Ritter arrives to arrest him. John flees and is given refuge by the children, who know of a secret cave.
Evidence is found linking Linda to another man. A tape recording is left as bait, and John, who suspects someone else, is surprised when Brad turns up looking for the tape. It reveals he's the one Linda had the affair with and the one who physically abused her, but John soon discovers that it was Mr. Carey who actually killed Linda to cover up for his cowardly son.

John Hamilton leaves a comfortable New York job to take up as an artist in a quiet Connecticut town. His dipso wife hates the life and falsely makes him out to be selfish, unsuccessful, and, worst, someone who hits her. When she suddenly disappears suspicion falls on him and the townsfolk take the law into their own hands. Hamilton finds his only allies are the local children he has befriended.

A Dangerous Profession

The story begins as Police Lt. Nick Ferrone (Jim Backus) explains what bail bondsmen do and tells the viewers the setting is Los Angeles, California. One such man is Vince Kane (George Raft), a former police detective who worked with Ferrone. When one of his customers, Claude Brackett (Bill Williams), is murdered, Kane decides to investigate. He has two reasons for investigating: the curiosity of a former cop and it seems that he has fallen in love with Brackett's widow Lucy, an old flame.

Ex-policeman Vince Kane is a partner with Joe Farley as bail bond brokers, but retains his ties and friendship with the police and Detective Nick Ferrone. Ferrone picks up Claude Brackette, a brokerage clerk, as a suspect in the securities robbery in which a policeman was killed, and Kane goes with him when the detective searches Brackett's apartment, and Kane finds that Brackett's wife, Lucy, is his former sweetheart. She insists her husband is innocent and pleads with Kane to get him out on bail but she has only $4,000 of the $25,000 needed. A mysterious emissary puts up $12,000 and Kanes, over Farley's protest, makes up the rest from the company's money. Brackett is murdered after his release. For Lucy, Kane investigates and finds that Brackett had dealings with night club owner Jerry McKay and a hoodlum named Roy Collins. Suspecting McKay was in back of the robbery, Kane begins a campaign in which he himself behaves like a crook, and demands a heavy bride from McKay for his silence. Farley denounces this tactic, and is met by Kane for a payment also, or he will be branded in league with the crooks.

I Was a Shoplifter

A shoplifter, Faye Burton, is being watched by Herb Klaxon, a security guard at a Los Angeles department store, and by Jeff Andrews, a shopper there. Jeff tries to warn her, but Faye is nevertheless caught and placed under arrest. Faye signs a confession and is set free, warned that if she tries this again, she will go to jail.
Faye returns to her job as a librarian. But a gang of thieves run by Ina Perdue, a pawnbroker, recruits Faye by claiming they can get her confession back, thereby clearing her record. Faye is shown by Ina and her henchman Pepe how to steal like a professional thief and is then given a San Diego robbery assignment as a test. She is followed by Jeff, who is actually an undercover law officer, working to bust the shoplifting ring.
Pepe attempts to sexually assault Faye, who becomes so despondent, she tries to commit suicide. Jeff rescues her and reveals his true identity. They arrange to work together, but Jeff's cover is blown and Faye is kidnapped. Ina and Pepe take her to Mexico to continue their crime spree, but Jeff and his men arrive in time to apprehend the crooks. Jeff also realizes he has fallen in love with Faye.

Police detective sergeant Jeff Andrews is working on a case involving a gang of shoplifters, and he allows himself to falsely arrested as a petty thief, in order to make contact with the gang. Meanwhile, Faye Burton, a petty shoplifter and the daughter of a prominent judge, is blackmailed by the gang into joining them on the promise that they will get back a confession signed when she was caught by a department store detective, who had her sign the document rather than calling the police. It takes Jeff and Faye a lot longer to figure out who is the 'brains' behind the shoplifting gang than it does the audience, and the audience has less information than they do.

Mystery Street

Blonde B-girl Vivian (played by Jan Sterling) is pregnant and tries to contact the father to seek financial help. He refuses to meet and stops taking her calls. She goes to "The Grass Skirt" bar in Boston where she works and picks up a drunk (Marshall Thompson) so she can use his car to drive to Cape Cod, where she can confront the father face to face.
Vivian drives with the car's owner drunk by her side. When the man realizes he's miles from Boston, he demands to be taken back. Instead, she ditches him and steals the car. But the father of the child, James Harkley, kills Vivian rather than pay up or risk exposure of the affair to his wife and family. He buries Vivian's body and sinks the car in a pond.
A day later, the drunk reports the car stolen to his insurance but neglects to mention the blonde, not wanting to get in trouble with his wife (Sally Forrest), who had been hospitalized suffering from the loss of a pregnancy. Months later, the B-girl's skeleton is found half-buried on a beach. State Police Lt. Peter Morales (Montalban), assigned to the District Attorney's Office in Barnstable, teams up with Boston police and uses forensics with the help of Dr. McAdoo, a Harvard doctor (Bennett), to figure out who the woman is.
Morales wants to know how she died. Vivian's nosy landlady (Lanchester) attempts to blackmail Harkley, the man Vivian had been calling from her boarding house, going so far as to visit the wealthy married man and steal his gun. Morales tracks down the stolen car from police records and questions Henry Shanway, the drunk Vivian was with the night she disappeared. Morales eventually finds Shanway's car and he's identified in a police lineup. The innocent man is arrested and charged with the murder.
Dr. McAdoo discovers a bullet stuck in the car. Morales then finds that the landlady has the gun, but not before she tries to blackmail Harkley for $20,000, is knocked over the head and dies. Morales chases but loses the killer. He comes across a hidden baggage check in the landlady's bird cage, which sends Morales racing to catch the killer before the murder weapon can be disposed of. At the train station, he apprehends Harkley and takes him into custody. Shanway gets to be set free.

Vivian, a B-girl working at "The Grass Skirt," is being brushed off by her rich, married boyfriend. To confront him, she hijacks drunken customer Henry Shanway and his car from Boston to Cape Cod, where she strands Henry...and is never seen again. Months later, a skeleton is found (sans clothes or clues) on a lonely Cape Cod beach. Using the macabre expertise of Harvard forensic specialist Dr. McAdoo, Lt. Pete Morales must work back from bones to the victim's identity, history, and killer. Will he succeed in time to save an innocent suspect?

The Big Combo

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond is on a personal crusade to bring down sadistic gangster Mr. Brown. He's also dangerously obsessed with Brown's girlfriend, the suicidal Susan Lowell. His main objective as a detective is to uncover what happened to a woman called "Alicia" from the crime boss's past.
Mr. Brown, his second-in-command McClure and thugs Fante and Mingo kidnap and torture the lieutenant, then pour a bottle of alcohol-based hair tonic down his throat before letting him go. Diamond eventually learns through one of Brown's past accomplices that Alicia was actually Brown's wife. The accomplice suspects that Alicia was sent away to Sicily with former mob boss Grazzi, then murdered, tied to the boat's anchor and permanently submerged.
Diamond questions a Swede named Dreyer, who was the skipper of that boat (but now operates an antiques store as a front, bankrolled by Brown). Dreyer denies involvement, but this doesn't prevent him from being murdered by McClure within seconds after he leaves the shop.
Diamond tries to persuade Susan to leave Brown and admits he might be in love with her. He shows her a photo of Brown, Alicia and Grazzi together on the boat. Susan finally confronts Brown about his wife and is told she is still alive in Sicily, Italy, living with Grazzi.
Brown next orders a hit on Diamond. However, when his gunmen Fante and Mingo go to Diamond's apartment, they mistakenly shoot and kill the cop's burlesque dancer girlfriend Rita instead. Diamond sees an up-to-date photo of Alicia but realizes it wasn't taken in Sicily (since there's snow on the ground). This leads Diamond to suspect Brown didn't kill Alicia but his boss Grazzi instead. Diamond is able to track Alicia to a sanitarium, where she is staying under another name. He asks for her help.
Brown's right-hand man, McClure, wants to take over. He plots with Fante and Mingo to ambush Mr. Brown, but ends up getting killed himself because they are loyal to the boss.
At police headquarters, Brown shows up with a writ of habeas corpus, effectively preventing Alicia to testify against her husband. Brown also brings a big stash of "money" to Fante and Mingo while they are hiding out from the police, but the box turns out to contain a bomb that apparently kills both.
Brown shoots the lieutenant's partner Sam and kidnaps Susan, planning to fly away to safety. Diamond finds a witness that could finally nail the elusive gangster—Mingo, who survived the blast and confesses, sobbing over the body of his cohort, that Brown was behind it all. Alicia is able to help Diamond figure out where Brown was likely to take Susan, a private airport where Brown intends to board a getaway plane.
However, the plane doesn't show up and the film climaxes in a foggy airplane hangar shootout. Susan shines a bright light in Brown's eyes and the lieutenant places him under arrest. The last scene shows the silhouetted figures of Diamond and Susan in the fog, considered to be one of the iconic images of film noir.

Police Lt. Diamond is told to close his surveillance of suspected mob boss Mr. Brown because it's costing the department too much money with no results. Diamond makes one last attempt to uncover evidence against Brown by going to Brown's girlfriend, Susan Lowell.

The Blue Gardenia

In Los Angeles, California, Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) is a single woman who works as a switchboard operator along with her roommates, Crystal Carpenter (Ann Sothern) and Sally Ellis (Jeff Donnell). On her birthday, she decides to celebrate by dining alone at home, with the picture of her fiancé, a soldier serving in the Korean War. At the candlelight dinner table, she opens the latest letter from him and learns to her shock that he instead plans to marry a nurse he met in Tokyo.
Devastated, Norah accepts a date over the telephone with womanizing calendar girl artist Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr). When she arrives at the Blue Gardenia restaurant and nightclub, Harry is surprised to see Norah, since he was expecting Crystal. However, he has dinner with her, and encourages her to drink six strong Polynesian Pearl Diver cocktails. Harry then takes her to his apartment, where he shows her his pictures and plays the record "The Blue Gardenia", sung by Nat King Cole, whom they had just seen perform the same song at the restaurant. Norah passes out on Harry's couch, and he makes a sexual advance. She awakens and resists, and apparently strikes him with a fire poker, causing a shattered mirror. Norah flees the scene, leaving behind her black suede pumps, and returns home.
The next morning, Norah is awakened by Crystal, and has suffered a blackout as to the events of the previous night. Meanwhile, at the crime scene, police question a maid (Almira Sessions) about what she found before she discovered Harry's body. She admits to cleaning the poker, which would have removed any fingerprints, and placing the shoes in the closet, so valuable evidence has been compromised.
At Norah's workplace, the police arrive to question women who had posed for Harry. When Norah asks her colleague about the questioning, she is startled, and goes to read the Los Angeles Chronicle newspaper's account of the slaying. Norah has a vague flashback of the wielding of a fire poker and the shattering of a mirror.
Newspaper columnist Casey Mayo (Richard Conte) dubs the presumed killer the "Blue Gardenia murderess." He learns from the Blue Gardenia waiter that the woman was a blonde, and from a blind female flower seller (Celia Lovsky) that the woman possessed a "quiet voice". That same night, at her apartment, Sally reads the newspaper report that the suspect wore a black dress at the time of the murder. Frightened, Norah wraps her own black dress in a newspaper and burns it in an outdoor incinerator. A patrolman arrives and demands to know why she is burning materials at an illegal hour, but he lets her off with a warning after she apologizes.
Wanting to catch the killer before the police do, Casey writes a column, titled "Letter to an Unknown Murderess", calling for her to turn herself in. Casey receives many bogus phone calls from local women, but when Norah calls, he realizes she is genuine. After one botched attempt, he meets her in his office. She convinces him that she is actually speaking for a friend, not herself, and Casey tells Norah that he is willing to pay for top legal representation if her friend agrees to surrender. The two later go to a diner, where Norah tells her supposed friend's account of the murder, but still insists her friend does not remember the actual killing. Casey asks to meet her friend at the diner the next day. Norah agrees and returns home, where she confesses to roommate Crystal, who is sympathetic.
The next day at the diner, Crystal meets Casey but quickly takes him to Norah's booth, where Norah finally admits that she herself is the woman he has been looking for. He feels shocked, because he had begun to fall in love with her. He also feels guilty, admitting to Norah that he was only pretending sympathy for the alleged killer when he thought it was someone other than her. Shortly afterward, the police arrive and arrest Norah. Bitter and confused, she mistakenly believes that Casey is the one who turned her in. (It was actually a diner employee.)
At an airport, Casey, with his colleague Al (Richard Erdman), notices that the piped-in music is identical to the music the maid found playing on Harry's phonograph. Finally grasping the significance of the fact that the records on the machine had been changed, Casey realizes it's possible that Norah was not the killer. Following up this hunch, Casey and Police Captain Sam Haynes (George Reeves) question a local music shop clerk about the record. Harry's ex-girlfriend Rose Miller (Ruth Storey), who sold Harry the record, is working at the shop. Realizing the police are closing in, Rose attempts suicide.
From a hospital bed, Rose confesses that while Norah was passed out at Harry's apartment, she herself arrived, telling him she was pregnant with his child and demanding that he marry her. He refused, she says, and started playing the record that had brought them together. (That record being Toscananni Tristan and Isolde RCA Victor 78 rpm) Then, Rose recalls, she noticed Norah's handkerchief by the record player, and out of jealousy killed Harry with the poker. Norah, everyone finally understands, was simply an intoxicated and confused witness.
After Rose's confession, Norah is freed. She confides to friends that she has forgiven Casey and wants him as the new man in her life. Casey wants her as well, and hands over his "little black book" to his buddy Al.

In Los Angeles, on the day of her birthday, the telephone operator Norah Larkin decides to celebrate dining alone at home, with the picture of her beloved fiancé, a soldier overseas, and reading his last letter to her. In the letter he tells her that he met an Army nurse stationed in Japan and plans to marry her. Norah, completely upset, accepts to blind date the Don Juan and photographer of calendar girls Harry Prebble. They go to the Blue Gardenia Club, and Norah drinks six strong cocktails Polynesian Pearl Divers and gets completely drunk. Harry takes her to his apartment and tries to force Norah to have sex, and she uses a poker to hit Harry on the head. On the next morning, she wakes-up in her apartment with her two roommates, but she can not remember what happened. When she reads the newspaper, she finds that Harry is dead and the police has her handkerchief, her high heels and her blue gardenia and is chasing the woman that killed the famous wolf Harry. When she reads in the newspaper that the journalist Casey Mayo is offering his support, exchanging per an exclusive interview, Norah decides to call him.

The Underworld Story

When newspaper reporter Mike Reese (Duryea) loses his job at a big city paper he finds that no one else will hire him. Reese borrows money from a gangster and buys half the interest in a small-town newspaper, The Lakewood Gazette, in the town of Lakeville. The newspaper is owned by Catherine Harris (Storm), who immediately has differences with Reese on how the paper should operate. Reese, trying to use the paper as a step up, latches onto a murder of a woman who happens to be the daughter-in-law of a newspaper magnate. When a local black woman is suspected, Reese turns the story into a media circus and soon his reporting is back in the spotlight again. The film is notable for the pejorative use of the word "nigger", though this is clearly dubbed, not what was originally filmed.

Mike Reese, yellow journalist and antihero, prints a story that leads to a gang killing, and is blacklisted from the city papers under suspicion of ties with racketeer Carl Durham. So, with a shrug, he makes the suspicion come true, then elbows his way into the editorship of the local paper in a small town where, opportunely, a sensational murder case threatens to destroy the family of newspaper magnate E.J. Stanton. When a black servant is made the patsy for this killing, Reese helps himself by helping her...but proves a dangerous ally.

Behind Locked Doors

At the behest of a pretty reporter, an amorously forward private detective goes undercover as a patient in a private sanitarium in search of a judge hiding out from the police. The two plan to split the $10,000 reward for the judge's capture. As the reporter and detective begin to fall in love, the detective also falls deeper into danger from an abusive attendant and difficult inpatients. The latter include an arsonist and "The Champ," a lunatic ex-boxer who attacks anyone put into a room with him after he hears what sounds like a bell.
Although the film features noir lighting and camerawork, depicts corruption, and provides suspense, it lacks most of the characterizations common to film noir. And it ends happily for the protagonists.

A well-known judge has become a fugitive from the police, with a large reward on his head. A reporter believes that the judge is hiding in a private sanitarium, so she seeks out a private investigator and asks him to pretend to be insane, so that he can get inside the sanitarium and look for the judge. The investigator is admitted to the asylum, and encounters many dangers while trying to prove that the judge is there.

Black Angel

A falsely convicted man's wife, Catherine (June Vincent), and an alcoholic composer and pianist, Martin (Dan Duryea), team up in an attempt to clear her husband of the murder of a blonde singer, Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling), who had been Martin's wife. Their investigation leads them to face-to-face confrontations with a determined policeman, Captain Flood (Broderick Crawford), and a shifty nightclub owner, Mr. Marko (Peter Lorre), who Catherine and Martin suspect may be the real killer.

Kirk Bennett is falsely sentenced to death for killing blackmailer Mavis Marlowe, ex-wife of nice-guy drunk Martin Blair. Bennett's stand-up wife Catherine tries to prove him innocent, enlisting the aid of Blair, who falls in love with her. Bennett's execution draws near as the two pose as piano player and singer, trying to get the goods on sleazy nightclub owner Marko, a prime suspect. Failing to nail Marko, Catherine goes off to meet with her husband, scheduled to die the next morning, and Blair slips into an alcoholic stupor before the real killer is revealed.

Night Without Sleep

A composer, Richard Morton experiences blackouts and cannot account for his actions. He seems to recall a woman's screams and a conversation with his wife, Emily, but it's all a blur.
Morton goes to see his friend John Harkness and is introduced to a film actress, Julie Bannon, and is attracted to her. He also apparently has made a date with Lisa Muller, who is angry when Morton shows up two hours late. He loses his temper and threatens her.
Julie goes out with Morton and attempts to seduce him, but something in him resists. He returns to Lisa and begins to menace her again, only to suffer another blackout. When he wakes up, Morton is in his own home by himself and isn't sure where he has been or what he has done.
He phones Lisa and learns she is all right. Concerned, he contacts Julie as well, but she also has not been harmed. Morton is glad that his violent temper did not cause him to lose control and that the woman's screams are all in his mind, until he goes to his own bedroom for the night and finds his wife there, dead.

Awaking one morning out of a drunken stupor, composer Richard Morton can't shake the feeling he has murdered a woman during the night.

Lady Possessed

While barely conscious, Jean Wilson (June Havoc), a patient in a London hospital, overhears Jimmy Del Palma (James Mason) berating hospital staff for their treatment of his wife, who then dies shortly afterwards. To recuperate following a miscarriage, Jean coincidentally rents the former country home of Del Palma, a famous pianist, and his wife. She starts to fall in love with the absent musician and dreams of taking his dead wife's place, even of being taken over and possessed by her. With the encouragement of her friend Sybil (Pamela Mason), Jean arranges a seance with a medium in an attempt to contact the dead woman.

In a London nursing home, Jean Wilson, a happily-married American woman, while in a state of self-consciousness, hears Jimmy Del Palma, angrily berate the hospital management for the ...

Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman

In a hospital, Angie Evans (Susan Hayward), her face bandaged, recounts the events that brought her here.
A nightclub singer, Angie becomes involved with another singer, Ken Conway (Lee Bowman), whose career has yet to take off. Her agent Mike Dawson (Charles D. Brown) helps get Ken and piano accompanist Steve Anderson (Eddie Albert) a spot on a radio show singing cowboy songs. Ken sings a ballad on the day Angie, now his wife, gives birth to their daughter. The attention he gets leads to a new career opportunity.
Ken soon is a big success, gaining popularity and wealth, while Angie stays home, her career at a standstill. She begins to drink. Ken counts on her to present a sophisticated image for his new high-society friends and contacts, but her alcoholism worsens, so secretary Martha Gray (Marsha Hunt) comes to Ken's aid.
It isn't long before Angie is certain an affair has begun with Martha and her husband. Steve tries to intervene on Angie's behalf, but he can see Martha has fallen in love with Ken.
Angie neglects the child, continues to drink, then creates a scene at a party. Ken asks for a divorce and custody. A fire starts from a lit cigarette of hers, shortly after she kidnaps their daughter from a nurse, results in Angie's suffering serious facial burns while saving the child.
There may be no hope, but Ken tries to stand by his wife as her life hits rock bottom.

Angie Evans, fast-rising nightclub singer, interrupts her career to marry struggling songwriter Ken Conway. When Ken lucks into a career as chart-topping radio crooner, Angie is forced into idle luxury which proves her downfall. Her potential alcoholism burgeons and Ken remains clueless concerning his responsibility for her problems.

Escape in the Fog

During World War II, a San Francisco nurse dreams of a murder and then meets the "victim" in real life. What she saw in the dream helps her in an effort to thwart enemy spies.

A military nurse recovering at an inn from a nervous breakdown keeps having dreams where she sees two men trying to murder a third. When she meets a man who is a federal agent at the inn, she is astounded to discover that he is the man in her dream who is the intended murder victim.

Guilty Bystander

Max Thursday is an alcoholic ex-cop. The only job he can find is as a house detective at his pal Smitty's hotel.
Ex-wife Georgia comes to him in a panic. Their son Jeff is missing and so is her brother Fred. She didn't go to the police after being warned not to by Dr. Elder, a business acquaintance of Fred's.
The drunken Max tries to confront Dr. Elder, but is knocked cold. He wakes up in jail to learn that Elder has been killed and he, Max, is the prime suspect. Georgia gives him an alibi, though, so Max is let out.
Now sober, Max learns that the doctor was involved in a diamond smuggling operation with Varkas, a known criminal. He learns from Varkas' helpful moll, Angel, that the gangster's men are holding Fred hostage.
Max is shot by Varkas' thugs. When he recovers, Varkas is dead, and Max finally realizes that it's his old friend Smitty who's behind the whole scheme. Jeff and Fred and rescued and a grateful Georgia welcomes them and Max back.

An alcoholic ex-cop, now the house detective at a scuzzy hotel in an even scuzzier part of town, stumbles through New York City's sleazy underworld searching for his kidnapped son.

The Brothers Rico

Eddie Rico (Richard Conte) is the owner of a prosperous laundry company in Bayshore, Florida who was the former accountant for a major crime syndicate years ago. He has given up his ties to the syndicate, and hopes to adopt a child with his wife, Alice. When Eddie receives a call asking to give a job to Wesson (William Phipps), a junior mobster, and Alice becomes worried that the syndicate will attempt to bring Eddie back into a life of crime. Eddie calms her down, but then he receives a letter from his mother saying that his two brothers, Johnny (James Darren) and Gino (Paul Picerni), have disappeared. On the way to work, Gino finds Eddie and asks for his help in leaving the country: Gino admits to being the gunman for a gang killing and Johnny was the driver. Gino now believes the syndicate is after him, and he was ordered to St. Louis later that day. Eddie, who does not believe that the syndicate is after them, tells Gino to go to St. Louis and gives him some money. When Eddie returns to work, he finds out that the syndicate boss, "Uncle" Sid Kubik (Larry Gates), has ordered him to Miami. Eddie leaves despite his wife's objections that he will miss an adoption interview.
Eddie meets Kubik in Miami, where Kubik apologizes for orders to hire Wesson and congratulates Eddie on his impending adoption. Kubik says the syndicate does not know where Johnny is, but they are concerned that because Johnny's new wife's brother is suspected of being a prosecution witness, Johnny will be persuaded to turn on the syndicate and testify against them in return for clemency. After insisting that he does not believe Johnny has not turned on them, Kubik tells Eddie to find Johnny and make him leave the country in order to protect his life. As Eddie leaves, Kubik goes into a different room where Gino is being beaten.
Eddie arrives in New York City and finds Johnny's brother-in-law, Peter Malaks (Lamont Johnson). When Eddie says that Johnny may be in a lot of trouble, Malaks tells Eddie he would rather have Johnny dead and does not approve of his sister getting involved with Johnny. Eddie then visits his mother (Argentina Brunetti) to ask where Johnny is, but she proclaims that even though she once took a bullet to protect Kubik's life, she no longer trusts Kubik. When Eddie tells her that Johnny's life is in danger, she prays in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and tells Eddie that Johnny last wrote from El Camino, California.
In California, Eddie finds Johnny and his pregnant wife, Norah (Kathryn Crosby) hiding out on a farm. Johnny says he left the syndicate because he wants his son to grow up to be clean and not know a life of crime. Norah becomes excited at the prospect of Johnny being dragged back into the syndicate, and needs a doctor. Eddie is asked to leave, and returns to his hotel room where Mike Lamotta (Harry Bellaver), a local crime boss, is waiting for him. There, Eddie realizes that Kubik used him to locate Johnny, and intended for Johnny to be killed the whole time. Lamotta instructs Eddie to tell Johnny to meet mobsters waiting outside his home, but Eddie tells Johnny to go to the cops instead, and is knocked out by Lamotta's assistant, Gonzales (Rudy Bond). To save his wife and newborn son, Johnny goes to the mobsters and is killed.
As Eddie and Gonzales fly back to Florida, Eddie learns that Gino attempted to flee the country against orders and was killed. Eddie knocks out Gonzales while on a stopover in Phoenix, and returns to Florida to give Alice money. He goes to Malaks and offers to testify against the syndicate. When Eddie goes to say goodbye to his mother, Kubik is there and holds him at gunpoint. Eddie pulls out his own gun and kills both Kubik and his accomplice, but is wounded himself. Eddie eventually testifies against the syndicate and it is broken up, while he and Alice go to an orphanage hoping to adopt a child.

Eddie Rico has been the book-keeper of an important Mafia boss but now he is an honest merchant and lives with his family in Florida. Everything changes when the police starts to search for his brothers. Now Eddie sees himself forced to get in touch with the Mafia again.

The Garment Jungle

Alan Mitchell is a returning Korean War veteran who joins his father Walter's garment company, Roxton Fashions. The firm has been paying protection money to gangsters led by Artie Ravidge to keep the union out.
Walter's partner, Fred Kenner, sympathizes with the union's goals. After he tells Walter to sever his ties with the hoodlum enforcers, Kenner is killed when the freight elevator he enters, which was just 'fixed' by one of the hoods disguised as a repairman, plunges 12 stories to the bottom of the shaft. Tulio Renata is a union organizer trying to organize the factory, who also later gets murdered by Ravidge's men, and his wife Theresa Renata endures threats against herself and their child.
Alan Mitchell comes to sympathize with the plight of the workers. When he finally convinces his father to fire the union-busting gangsters, Walter is killed and Ravidge attempts to take over the factory. Theresa Renata takes copies of Mitchell's records to the police, who arrest Ravidge.

The struggle of a lady's garment workers' organization to unionize a New York clothing sweat shop; the owner of which is determined to keep the union out of his business at any cost.

The Long Wait

Johnny McBride is badly hurt while hitch hiking and loses his memory when the car he is riding in crashes. Two years later, a clue leads him to his old home town, where he finds he is a murder suspect. McBride tries to clear his name of the presumed murder charges. Thugs working for the local mob boss try to end his meddling.

Hitchhiker Johnny McBride is badly hurt and loses his memory when the car he is riding in crashes. Two years later, a clue leads him to his old home town, where he finds he is a murder suspect. Johnny tries to discover the truth about the murder, while pursued by gangsters and several seductive women.

Cause for Alarm!

A flashback shows how Ellen (Loretta Young) met George (Barry Sullivan) in a Naval hospital during World War II while she was dating his friend, Lieutenant Ranney Grahame (Bruce Cowling), a young military doctor whose busy schedule left little time for her. George was a pilot, and Ellen swiftly fell in love with him, although the flashback strongly hints he had some capacity for arrogance and selfishness. Nevertheless, they soon married and, after the war, wound up in a leafy suburban Los Angeles neighborhood.
Unhappily, George is now confined to his bed with heart problems. There is a heat wave, and Ellen is spending most her time caring for him. George's doctor is their old friend Ranney, with whom George thinks his wife is having an affair. In response, Ranney suggests George may need psychological help. After Ellen tells her bedridden husband she dreams of having children, he becomes angry. Meanwhile, George has written a letter to the District Attorney in which he claims his wife and best friend are killing him with overdoses of medicine for his heart.
A little neighbor boy dressed as a movie cowboy and wearing cap pistols (Bradley Mora) befriends the childless Ellen, who gives him cookies. He hands her a toy (fake) television set and asks Ellen to give it to George, which she does whilst serving her husband lunch in bed. He tells her an unsettling story about how, as a child, he had beaten a neighbor boy with a rake until he drew blood. Thinking the thick letter has something to do with insurance, Ellen gives it to the postman (Irving Bacon), who sees George in the upstairs bedroom window. When Ellen rushes up to find out why he has gotten out of bed, George lets her know what the letter says and who it is addressed to. George pulls a gun and is about to kill her when he drops dead on the bed. In her narration she describes George's death as "one of those awful dreams."
Ellen panics over the letter and, as noted by a reviewer over 50 years later, throughout the film's second half seems "much more concerned with absolving herself from the blame of his death than missing her spouse." Running from the house and shown the way by two teenagers in the film's brief reference to Los Angeles' mid-twentieth century jalopy culture, she chases down the overly talkative postman to whom she gave the letter; but he won't give it back to her without talking to George first, since he wrote it. However, the postman says she can ask the Supervisor at the downtown Post Office, who has more authority. Ellen is frantic when she gets back to the house, only to find George's Aunt Clara (Margalo Gillmore) climbing the stairs to see him and stops her barely in time. After the two talk for a while, Clara again heads up the stairs; but Ellen stops her once more, saying George told her earlier not to let his aunt see him. Clara leaves in a huff, telling her George was "rude, mean and selfish since he's been six... he's worse if anything."
Ellen goes back up to the bedroom to change her clothes and sees the gun still in George's hand, narrating, "Somehow I knew I shouldn't leave it there." As she wrenches the pistol from his hand, it fires. Readying herself to leave the house, a polite but somewhat aggressive notary (Don Haggerty) rings the doorbell, telling her he has an appointment with George to go over some legal documents. She steadfastly says George is too sick to see anyone. Ellen desperately drives downtown to the post office to see the supervisor, who is friendly and gives her a form for George to sign but then, nettled by Ellen's unhinged and uncooperative behavior, tells her he is going to allow the letter to be delivered. Defeated, she returns to the house and, as she gets to the front door, a kindly neighbor woman (Georgia Backus) offers to help Ellen, since she has seemed so upset all day.
When Ranney shows up to check on George, Ellen is hysterical. Ranney tells her to be calm and goes up to the bedroom. Showing no apparent emotion for his dead best friend, he sees the bullet hole in the floor, finds the gun in a dresser drawer, methodically repositions George's body in the bed, and draws down the window shade. Back downstairs with Ellen, Ranney listens as she tells him what happened, saying "I did everything wrong, just like he said I would." The doorbell rings. She thinks the police have come to arrest her, but Ranney urges Ellen to open the door. When she does, it is the postman, returning the thick letter for insufficient postage. Ranney gives a sigh of relief; Ellen takes back the envelope and is overcome after closing the door. Ranney wordlessly rips the letter into narrow strips and burns these shreds in an ashtray along with a matchbook bearing the embossed names George and Ellen.

Invalid George Jones is both physically and mentally ill. He mistakenly believes his wife Ellen and his doctor are having an affair and also planning to kill him. He writes a letter to his lawyer detailing their alleged murder plot. After he has Ellen give the letter to their postman, he reveals its contents to her and then threatens her with a gun. The excitement proves to much and George suffers a fatal collapse. Now Ellen must find a way to retrieve the incriminating letter.

Hell on Frisco Bay

After five years in San Quentin prison, former policeman Steve Rollins is released. Unjustly convicted of manslaughter in an arrested man's death, Steve is met by a friend from the force, Dan Bianco, and by wife Marcia, whom he shuns because she has been unfaithful to him.
Steve goes to the San Francisco waterfront looking for a fisherman named Rogani who supposedly has proof that can clear his name. The docks are run by racketeer Victor Amato, who is forcing out dock leader Lou Flaschetti. A couple of thugs who work for the mobster, Lye and Hammy, come to confront Steve, warning him not to take this any further.
Marcia tries to explain to Steve that she was lonely while he was in prison and cheated on him just once. He is reluctant to trust her. Rogani and Flaschetti, meantime, both end up dead. Steve manages to get valuable information from Amato's mild-mannered nephew, Mario, and when the henchman Hammy opens fire, Steve's cop friend Bianco kills him.
Lye is told by Amato to murder Mario, even though the boy is the mob boss's blood relative. Lye reluctantly follows orders, but when he discovers Amato behind his back has made a pass at Kay Stanley, an actress Lye is in love with, then slapped her after being rejected, Lye is enraged. And so is Amato's long-suffering wife, Anna, who tells Steve where to find him.
With the cops closing in and others after him, too, Amato has decided to leave the country. In a showdown, Amato gets the better of Lye, then attempts to flee on a speedboat. Steve swims to the boat and fights with Amato on board. The boat crashes into a lighthouse. Amato, dazed and defeated, is taken into custody. Steve, his reputation restored, considers going back to police work and also giving Marcia a second chance.

When ex-cop Steve Rollins is released from San Quentin after five years, his only thoughts are of revenge on the men who framed him for manslaughter. Back in San Francisco, his quest for the truth brings him up against ruthless waterfront gang boss Victor Amato.

The Tattered Dress


When top lawyer James Blane gets an acquittal for a man who killed another man for sexually roughing up his trophy wife, the murderous town sheriff frames him for bribing a juror in the case.

The Reckless Moment

While her husband is away on business, Lucia finds the body of Darby, a slimy Los Angeles criminal, outside her house. Darby, who had been blackmailing her over his relationship with her 17 year old daughter Bea, died accidentally in a struggle with Bea. Lucia hides the body in a swamp, where it is found by the police.
Another LA criminal, handsome and smooth-talking Donnelly, then starts blackmailing Lucia over letters Bea had written to Darby. As she tries to get together the 5,000 dollars he demands, he starts falling in love with her and allows her more time. His brutal partner Nagel steps in, calling at Lucia's house to demand the money on the spot. Donnelly arrives and In a struggle Nagel is killed. The wounded Donnelly drives the body away with Lucia in pursuit, but overturns the car. As he lies dying, he gives Bea's letters to Lucia and tells her the matter is closed.

In the charming community of Balboa 50 miles from Los Angeles, middle-class housewife Lucia Harper travels to Los Angeles to meet scoundrel, Ted Darby. Her seventeen year-old daughter Beatrice is in love with Ted. He asks for money to leave Bea, but Lucia refuses to give any. Bea does not believe her mother when told and during the night she sneaks out to the boat garage to meet Ted who admits that Lucia told the truth. Bea pushes him and Ted falls to his on an anchor. The next morning, Lucia finds the body and assumes that Bea has killed her lover. She decides to get rid of the corpse and puts it in her boat and dumps it far from home. When the police find Ted, a stranger, Martin Donnelly, visits Lucia to blackmail her on behalf of his partner, Nagel who has several letters Bea had written to Ted. Donnelly wants $5000 for the letters. The desperate Lucia tries to raise the amount. Martin falls in love with Lucia and tries to help her too. The dangerous Nagel wants to receive the amount at any price.

I Was a Communist for the FBI

Matt Cvetic (Frank Lovejoy), who works in a Pittsburgh steel mill, has been infiltrating the Communist Party for the FBI in Pittsburgh for nine years. During this time he has been unable to tell his family about his dual role, so they believe he is a Communist and despise him.
He becomes emotionally involved with a Communist school teacher (Dorothy Hart), who is becoming disenchanted with the party. She breaks with the party when it foments a violent strike. Cvetic helps her escape the Communists in violent sequences in which two Communists and an FBI agent are killed.
Communists are portrayed in the film as cynical opportunists, racists who are interested only in seizing power on behalf of the Soviets and not in improving social and labor conditions in the U.S. They are shown exploiting ethnic tensions to get their way, such as by wrapping copies of a Jewish newspaper around lead pipes used to beat up people during a strike. They also are shown fomenting discontent among blacks. They are shown as cynical racists, calling blacks "niggers" and Jews "kikes".
The Communists in the film are also shown to be violent thugs who kill informers.
Cvetic ultimately testifies against the Communists before the House Un-American Activities Committee and reconciles with his brother and son.

The FBI infiltrates one of their agents in the US Communist Party. This causes big problems in the normal life of the agent. Nobody knows that he is with the FBI, neither his family.

Ride the Pink Horse

Lucky Gagin (Robert Montgomery) arrives on a bus in San Pablo, a small rural town in New Mexico during its annual fiesta. He plans to confront and blackmail money from a mobster named Frank Hugo (Fred Clark) as retribution for the death of his best friend Shorty. He unpacks the Colt 45 pistol from his luggage, sticks it in his waistband, places the check in question in locker 250, and secretes the locker key with a piece of chewing gum to the back of the framed map in the bus depot waiting room.
Because of the fiesta, Gagin cannot find a room at the hotel by the bus station. He is directed to the non-tourist side of the town. At the merry go round there, he meets Pila (Wanda Hendrix) who takes him to the La Fonda Hotel and gives him a charm of Ishtam that she says will protect him.
At the hotel, Gagin uses a ruse to find out that Frank Hugo is in room 315. Gagin comes, uninvited, into the hotel room, and proceeds to knock out Jonathan (Richard Gaines), Hugo's private secretary. Marjorie Lundeen (Andrea King), a sophisticated female acquaintance of Hugo's, comes in and uses her wiles trying to learn more about him. When the telephone rings, Gagin answers and impersonates a bell boy. Speaking with Hugo, he learns that Hugo will not be there that day. Gagin leaves the room and in the hotel lobby, he is accosted by FBI agent Bill Retz (Art Smith). In his conversation with Gagin, Retz recounts the plot so far. Retz takes Gagin to lunch and tells Gagin to lay off with his plot for revenge on Frank Hugo.
Still looking for a room, Gagin ends up at the Cantina de las Tres Violetas, where Pila is inexplicably sitting outside. Going inside, Gagin finds himself to be the only non-Hispanic in the bar. He buys himself a large whiskey and pays for it with a twenty dollar bill. The barkeep can only make change for ten dollars and the situation is resolved by Pancho (Thomas Gomez), who proposes that Gagin buy ten dollars worth of drinks for everyone in the bar.
Gagin, having spent twenty dollars at the bar, accompanies Pancho back to his tiovivo (carousel) where Pancho puts him up for the night. Pila arrives at the merry go round and ends up sleeping in one of the seats on the carousel. Retz also shows up and warns Gagin of the toughs and tells him that if he could readily find Gagin, so will the toughs.
The next morning, Gagin goes back to the hotel where he meets Frank Hugo, who wears a hearing aid. Gagin tells Hugo that he has check number 6431 and proceeds to layout the blackmail. They agree to meet that evening at the Tip Top Cafe, where Hugo will pay Gagin the thirty thousand dollars for the incriminating check.
Retz meets Gagin and "officially" asks for the evidence, which Gagin refuses to hand over. Gagin takes Pila to lunch and they are interrupted by the arrival of Marjorie Lundeen. She lays out a scheme for how to shakedown Frank Hugo for even more money, but Gagin does not go along with Marjorie's plan.
After the lunch, Gagin returns to the bus depot where he retrieves the check and follows the fiesta crowd to the Tip Top Cafe. He meets with Hugo, who is having dinner with his associates. Hugo tells Gagin that the bank messenger with the money will be late. Marjorie invites Gagin to dance with her, and in order to not be seen by Hugo, she walks Gagin outside to a dark alley. There, she tells him that there is no messenger, but someone else. The response to Gagin's query as to who is coming is two toughs who jump him. In the ensuing fight, one of them stabs Gagin in the right shoulder with a knife. Retz finds the two toughs in the alley, one dead and one with a broken arm, and confronts Hugo at the dining table. While the police search the area, Pila finds Gagin in the bushes, pulls the knife out of his back, and together they make their way back to Pancho and the merry go round.
Gagin gives the check to Pila, who hides it in her bustier. Two toughs come to the tiovivo. With Gagin hidden in one of the seats by Pila, and children riding the carousel, the toughs proceed to severely beat Pancho, who does not divulge the presence of Gagin. Gagin, whose health and mental state are failing, agrees to go with Pila back by bus to her village of San Melo. While they are waiting in the Tres Violetas, they are found by Locke (Edward Earle) and Lundeen. When Locke approaches the now passed out Gagin, Pila hits him with a bottle and they make their escape, leaving Marjorie to find Locke lying on the floor the cantina.
Gagin makes his way back to the La Fonda Hotel, where Pila finds him outside room 315. The door is opened by one of Hugo's toughs and the duo is brought into the room,where Frank Hugo, Marjorie Lundeen, Jonathan, and the two toughs are present. Hugo begins to question the now incoherent Gagin, who does not remember where the check is. He is beaten by one of the toughs, who then proceed to also beat Pila. Retz arrives, disarms the toughs, breaks Hugo's hearing aid, and ultimately gets the check from Gagin.
At a two dollar breakfast the next day with Retz, Gagin refuses to eat. Retz tells Gagin that he should say goodbye to Pila and Pancho, and together they return to the merry go round. Gagin bids adieu to Pancho, and then, uncomfortably, to Pila, to whom he returns the Ishtam charm. As Retz and Gagin leave, Pila, who had been somewhat of an outcast with her peers, is surrounded by them. She recounts the story of her adventure and realizes that now she is the center attraction among her group.

In the bordertown of San Pablo, preparing for an annual 'Mexican Fiesta,' arrives Gagin: tough, mysterious and laconic. His mission: to find the equally mysterious Frank Hugo, evidently for revenge; or is it blackmail? FBI agent Retz is also after the elusive Hugo. Everyone in town is enigmatic, especially Pila, a mystical teenager who follows Gagin around and has premonitions of his death. Also involved are a classic femme fatale and an antique carousel with a pink horse...

Johnny Stool Pigeon

A narcotics agent convinces a convict he helped send to Alcatraz go undercover with him to help expose a heroin drug smuggling ring. The unlikely pair travels from San Francisco to Vancouver and finally to a dude ranch in Tucson which is run by mob bosses. They end up getting help breaking the case from the gang leader's dingy blonde girlfriend (Winters), who falls for the narcotics agent during the sting.

In San Francisco, during the 1940s, US Treasury agents interrupt an illicit exchange between a sailor and a drug dealer. During the shootout, the sailor is killed but the drug dealer escapes. Later on,the agents pick up the trail of the fugitive drug dealer but arrive at his apartment too late. The dealer lays dead, permanently silenced by a hired hit-man. The only thing the agents have is an address book found on the dead drug dealer's body. Among the clues there is one that seems to be promising: the address of a shady Canadian trading company based in Vancouver. Treasury agent George Morton decides to visit a convict in Alcatraz and solicit his help in infiltrating the underworld. Morton knows that convincing the imprisoned criminal Johnny Evans to become a stool pigeon for the Feds won't be easy. But Evans is Morton's only hope to infiltrate the underworld and crack the case.

The Scarlet Hour

E. V. Marshall, known to all as "Marsh," works for wealthy real-estate businessman Ralph Nevins and is having a romantic affair with Ralph's unhappy wife, Paulie. He asks her to get a divorce, but Paulie grew up impoverished and refuses to do without her husband's money.
One night they overhear thieves planning a jewelry robbery of the home of a doctor named Lynbury. They do not go to the police, concerned that Ralph might learn they were together. When she returns home later, however, Paulie is physically assaulted by her angry husband.
Suspicious of her behavior, Ralph tells his secretary Kathy Stevens that he's planning to take his wife on a vacation and permit Marsh to run the company in his absence. Ralph then follows Paulie when she sees Marsh. Now willing to do anything to get away from her husband, Paulie pleads with Marsh to rob the jewels from the thieves as they leave Dr. Lynbury's house.
At the scene of the crime, where Marsh successfully steals the gems from the thieves who have robbed Dr. Lynbury's home, Ralph catches Marsh and Paulie in the act and Paulie shoots him. Gunfire from the thieves makes Marsh believe they were the ones who shot Ralph.
As the police investigate, Kathy discovers that Ralph has secretly made a recording, explaining his suspicions about his wife. Kathy is in love with Marsh, who decides to go to the police and confess. It turns out, meanwhile, that Dr. Lynbury has masterminded the burglary of his own home, looking to collect insurance money after having replaced his wife's jewels with worthless fakes. Police eventually place Lynbury under arrest and Paulie as well, with Marsh's cooperation.

An unhappy wife uses her powers of manipulation to draw an infatuated man into an ill-fated jewelry heist.

City That Never Sleeps

Johnny Kelly (Gig Young) is a Chicago cop from a long line of police officers. He's grown tired of the job and his married life. Haunted by echoes of his mother-in-law's scolding voice, he plans on leaving his wife Kathy (Paula Raymond) for exotic dancer Sally "Angel Face" Connors (Mala Powers), but Sally is getting tired of waiting for him. Also in love with her is a club entertainer, Gregg, who mimics a mechanical man in his act.
Penrod Biddel (Edward Arnold), a corrupt, powerful attorney, wants Johnny for a job. Johnny is tempted because he needs money to move to California and start a new life. While still on duty, Johnny agrees to "escort" a low-life former magician Hayes Stewart(William Talman), now a criminal, across the border to Indiana, where apparently Hayes will permanently stay out of the way.
Hayes has been attempting to blackmail Penrod, crack his safe and find documents to use against him. It turns out Hayes' accomplice is Penrod's own wife, Lydia. As soon as Hayes hears about Penrod's plan to use the cop Johnny, he confronts Penrod, who is shot. Then he kills Lydia as well, in front of an eyewitness, Gregg.
Kathy goes to her father-in-law and says she might quit her job and try to make Johnny happier at home. His mind still playing tricks on him, Johnny goes after Hayes, accompanied by a mysterious sergeant called Joe, who may or may not be a figment of Johnny's imagination. Johnny becomes more disturbed when his father, a 27-year veteran of the force, is killed by Hayes, who mistook father for son.
Hayes goes to the club and spots the mechanical man, but can't tell if it's a robot or man pretending to be one. Someone else notices teardrops rolling down the robot's eyes, so Hayes opens fire. Gregg is wounded but not killed and Sally suddenly realizes how much she cares for him. Johnny arrives and chases Hayes to an "el" train, where Hayes is accidentally electrocuted. Johnny decides to stay on the job, with Kathy by his side. Joe just disappears.

Chicago cop Johnny Kelly, dissatisfied with his job and marriage, would like to run away with his stripper girlfriend Angel Face, but keeps getting cold feet. During one crowded night, Angel Face decides she's had enough vacillation, and crooked lawyer Biddel has an illegal mission for Johnny that could put him in a financial position to act. But other, conflicting schemes are also in progress...

Desert Fury

Fritzi Haller (Mary Astor) is the tough owner of a saloon and casino in the small fictional mining town of Chuckawalla, Nevada. Her daughter, Paula Haller (Lizabeth Scott), has just quit school and returned home at the same time that gangster Eddie Bendix (John Hodiak) has returned. He was once involved with Fritzi, but left town under suspicion of murdering his wife.
Paula falls for Bendix and they become involved. Paula's old boyfriend, and local lawman, Tom Hanson (Burt Lancaster), along with Bendix's sidekick, Johnny Ryan (Wendell Corey), try to break up the relationship. When Fritzi finds out, she angrily tries to protect Paula and put a stop to her seeing Bendix.
Bendix's past catches up with him in an unexpected way when the car he is in, running from Hanson (who wants to rid the town of the likes of Bendix and Ryan), crashes through the railing as it is going onto the bridge and plunges down the embankment, killing him.

Fritzi Haller is a powerful casino owner in Chuckawalla, Nevada. Her daughter Paula (having quit school) returns at the same time as racketeer Eddie Bendix, who left under suspicion of murdering his wife. Paula and Eddie become involved; each for their own reasons, Fritzi, Paula's old beau Tom, and Eddie's pal Johnny try to break up the relationship. Then Eddie's past catches up with him in an unexpected way.

Affair in Trinidad

The film is set in Trinidad while it was still a British colony. Chris Emery (Rita Hayworth) works as a nightclub singer and dancer. One night after her performance she receives news from Inspector Smythe (Torin Thatcher) and Anderson (Howard Wendell), a member of the American consulate, that her husband Neil was found dead. She is comforted by Neil's friend Max Fabian (Alexander Scourby).
Initially, the police conclude that Neil committed suicide based on his gunshot wound and due to a pistol at the crime scene. On further investigation they discover that Neil was in fact murdered. Inspector Smythe and Anderson take Chris into confidence and inform her that Neil's boat was seen outside Fabian's property at the time of his murder. Chris learns that Fabian is in fact a crook who has built his fortune by trading information and aiding in treason and that Neil could have been murdered due to his involvement in Fabian's latest project. Chris agrees to exploit Fabian's love for her to gather information for the police.
Meanwhile, Neil's brother Steve Emery (Glenn Ford) arrives in Trinidad at the request of his brother who had written to him about a prospective job. He is shocked to learn that his brother committed suicide shortly after writing to him and sets out to investigate matters on his own. After the inquest Chris and Steve spend some time together. Though she starts falling in love with Steve, Chris is unable to reveal to him her motive behind getting friendly with Fabian.
As Chris inches closer to discovering the truth about Fabian, Steve gathers proof of Fabian's involvement in Neil's death. This leads to a showdown in the climax.

When Steve Emery arrives in Trinidad at the urgent request of his brother, he is stunned to find that his brother has not only been murdered, but that his brother's wife Chris is succumbing to the seduction attempts of the man who quite possibly is the murderer. His feelings are further exacerbated when he discovers that he, too, is becoming strongly attracted to Chris, who is a steamy cabaret singer. She, in turn, is playing off one against the other while betraying the secrets of both men to the police, for whom she is secretly working.

The Mask of Dimitrios

The year is 1938. Dutch mystery writer Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) is visiting Istanbul. A fan of his, Colonel Haki (Kurt Katch) of the Turkish police, believes Leyden would be interested in the story of Dimitrios Makropoulos (Zachary Scott), whose body was just washed up on the beach. Leyden is so fascinated by what Haki tells of the dead arch-criminal that he becomes determined to learn more.
He seeks out Dimitrios' associates all over Europe, none of whom has a kind word for the deceased. They reveal more of the man's sordid life. His ex-lover, Irana Preveza (Faye Emerson), tells of his failed assassination attempt. Afterwards, he borrowed money from her and never returned.
On his travels, Leyden meets Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet). Later, he catches Peters ransacking his hotel room. Peters reveals that he too had dealings with Dimitrios (he had done prison time when Dimitrios betrayed their smuggling ring to the police), and he is not convinced that the man is really dead. If he is alive, Peters plans to blackmail him for keeping his secret. He generously offers Leyden a share, but the Dutchman is interested only in learning the truth.
Wladislaw Grodek (Victor Francen) is the next link in the trail. He had hired Dimitrios to obtain some state secrets. Dimitrios manipulated Karel Bulic (Steven Geray), a meek, minor Yugoslav government official, into gambling and losing a huge sum, so he could be pressured into stealing charts of some minefields. Bulic later confessed to the authorities and committed suicide. Meanwhile, Dimitrios double-crossed Grodek, selling the charts himself to the Italian government.
Eventually, the two men track Dimitrios down in Paris. Fearful of being exposed to the authorities, he pays Peters one million francs for his silence but, true to his nature, goes to Peters' home shortly thereafter and shoots him. Leyden, his rage over Peters being shot overcoming his fear, grapples with Dimitrios, allowing the wounded Peters to grab the gun. Peters sends Leyden away to spare him from witnessing the violence to come; then shots are heard. When the police show up, Peters admits to shooting Dimitrios and does not resist arrest, satisfied with what he has accomplished. As he is taken away, he asks that Leyden write a book about the affair, and to kindly send him a copy.

A mystery writer named Leyden is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, to learn more about the man. Along the way, he is joined by mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.

The Man Who Cheated Himself

Wealthy socialite Lois Frazer, divorcing her fortune-hunter husband, Howard, finds a gun he's bought. She kills him with it in front of the new man in her life, Lt. Ed Cullen, a homicide detective with the San Francisco police. The twice-married Lois manages to manipulate Cullen into disposing of the murder weapon and moving the body. Cullen ends up investigating the case, assisted by kid brother Andy, who is new to the homicide division and delays his honeymoon to keep working on his first big case.
The gun is found and used in another killing by a young punk, Nito Capa, so all Cullen can think to do is try to pin both crimes on him. Andy Cullen keeps connecting Ed to the first murder, however, catching him in a number of lies. Ed ties and gags Andy and tells Lois they need to flee. Roadblocks seal off the city, but Andy has a hunch where Ed took the woman to hide, at Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge, and soon they are under arrest. Outside the courtroom, Ed overhears the amoral Lois offering to do anything for her lawyer if he can keep her from being convicted.

A veteran homicide detective who has witnessed his socialite girlfriend kill her husband sees his inexperienced brother assigned to the case.

The Woman in the Window

After criminology professor Richard Wanley sends his wife and two children off on vacation, he goes to his club to meet friends. Next door, Wanley sees a striking oil portrait of Alice Reed (Joan Bennett) in a storefront window. He and his friends talk about the beautiful painting and its subject. Wanley stays at the club and reads Song of Songs. When he leaves, Wanley stops at the portrait and meets Reed, who is standing near the painting watching people watch it. Reed convinces Wanley to join her for drinks.
Later, they go to Reed's home, but an unexpected visit from her rich lover Claude Mazard (Arthur Loft) leads to a fight in which Wanley kills Mazard. Wanley and Reed conspire to cover up the murder, and Wanley disposes Mazard's body in the country. However, Wanley leaves many clues, and there are a number of witnesses. One of Wanley's friends from the club, district attorney Frank Lalor (Raymond Massey) has knowledge of the investigation, and Wanley is invited back to the crime scene, as Lalor's friend, but not as a suspect. There are several comic dialogues in which Wanley appears to know more about the murder than he should. As the police gather more evidence, Reed is blackmailed by Heidt (Dan Duryea), a crooked ex-cop who was Mazard's bodyguard. Reed attempts to poison Heidt with a prescription overdose when he returns the next day, but Heidt is suspicious and takes the money without drinking the drugs. Reed tells Wanley, who overdoses on the remaining prescription medicine.
Heidt is killed in a shootout immediately after leaving Reed's home, and police believe Heidt is Mazard's murderer. Reed, seeing that the police have killed Heidt, races to her home to call Wanley, who is slumped over in his chair, and apparently he dies. In an impossible match on action, Wanley awakens in his chair at his club, and he realizes the entire adventure was a dream in which employees from the club were main characters in the dream. As he steps out on the street in front of the painting, a woman asks Wanley for a light. He adamantly refuses and runs down the street.

Gotham College professor Wanley and his friends become obsessed with the portrait of a woman in the window next to the men's club. Wanley happens to meet the woman while admiring her portrait, and ends up in her apartment for talk and a bit of champagne. Her boyfriend bursts in and misinterprets Wanley's presence, whereupon a scuffle ensues and the boyfriend gets killed. In order to protect his reputation, the professor agrees to dump the body and help cover up the killing, but becomes increasingly suspect as the police uncover more and more clues and a blackmailer begins leaning on the woman.

The Second Woman

This psychological thriller tells the story of Jeff Cohalan (Young). He is a successful architect who is tormented because his fiancée, Vivian Sheppard, was killed in a mysterious car accident on the night before their wedding. Blaming himself for her death, Cohalan spends his time alone, lamenting in the state-of-the-art cliff-top home he had designed for his bride-to-be.
Cohalan notices that ever since the accident, he seems to be followed by bad luck. Without explanation, his horse turns up horribly injured and he must put it down, his dog is poisoned and dies. These events lead Cohalan to wonder if he has been cursed.
He meets a woman named Ellen (Drake), and they are immediately attracted to each other. She soon learns about Jeff's past and begins to suspect that he may be much more in danger than he himself realizes.
It turns out that his partner in architecture, Ben Sheppard, was trying to destroy him. Sheppard, who was Vivian's father, held Jeff responsible for her death. But the driver of the car had been a married man with whom Vivian was having an affair. Ben himself had a wife run away from him, and has a psychotic break when confronted with the truth behind his daughter's car crash. Thinking Ellen is Vivian, and angry about his wife running off, Ben shoots at Vivian/Ellen. Jeff gets hit in the shoulder protecting Ellen. It all ends well, with Jeff and Ellen getting together.

In flashback from a 'Rebecca'-style beginning: Ellen Foster, visiting her aunt on the California coast, meets neighbor Jeff Cohalan and his ultramodern clifftop house. Ellen is strongly attracted to Jeff, who's being plagued by unexplainable accidents, major and minor. Bad luck, persecution...or paranoia? Warned that Jeff could be dangerous, Ellen fears that he's in danger, as the menacing atmosphere darkens.

Bury Me Dead

When the remains of a woman's body are found after a fire consumes a barn on the estate of wealthy Barbara Carlin, it is assumed to be her, especially since she was wearing Barbara's diamond necklace. However, after the funeral, Barbara secretly contacts Michael Dunn, the family lawyer. He advises her to notify the police immediately, but she suspects someone is trying to murder her and wants to investigate first.
A series of flashbacks reveals the possible motives of several suspects. The prime suspect is her irresponsible, philandering husband, Rod, whom she is reluctantly divorcing; he might want her wealth. But there is also Rusty, a resentful young woman who had been raised to believe she was Barbara's younger sister. When Barbara's father died, his will revealed that Rusty was just an orphan he had raised, but not legally adopted; Barbara inherited everything. Barbara was quite willing to share everything with her, but Rusty accepted only a small allowance. Rusty, it also turns out, is in love with Rod and (mistakenly) believes he loves her. And who is the woman buried under Barbara's name?
Another flashback reveals that Rusty, a minor, had taken up with a dimwitted boxer named George Mandley. When Barbara went to take her home, Rod had become openly attracted to George's shapely "assistant", Helen Lawrence. Barbara began seeing George to retaliate. Rusty bitterly resented Barbara taking George away from her. Eventually, it is realized that the dead woman is Helen. (Rod had let her try on Barbara's necklace and forgotten to get it back.)
More revelations follow. Helen, George's scheming girlfriend, had gotten him to date Barbara while she herself was seeing Rod. She hinted to Rod that he should kill his wife and marry her. That failed, as Rod actually loved Barbara, leaving Helen to plot to extort money out of Barbara through George. Meanwhile, Rusty, still certain that Rod loves her, boasts to him that her schemes had driven him and Barbara apart.
After the power goes out in her mansion that night, Barbara is attacked by an unknown assailant in the dark. Fortunately, the attacker flees before finishing the job. Rod and Jeffers, their butler, show up shortly afterward, followed by Michael. Rod is taken in by the police for questioning, during which he is asked to telephone Michael for information about any insurance policies on Barbara's life. When Michael's secretary mentions that he has not been in the office all day, Rod remembers that he claimed to have received Rod's message about the latest attack. He insists that the police take him back to the mansion as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Michael realizes he has blundered, telling Barbara that Helen was murdered with a hammer, something only the killer would know. When Rusty shows up, he decides to stage Rusty and Barbara as a murder-suicide, but is gunned down by the police just in time.

Barbara Carlin attends her own funeral and returns home suspecting that her husband, Rod Carlin, had tried to do away with her, and is also (rightfully) curious as to just who was the woman buried under her name. She learns that the victim was glamor girl Helen Lawrence, with whom her husband had been having an affair. Complications come from her sister Rusty, who, it turns out, is not her real sister and also doesn't like her a whole lot, and from a dim-witted prize fighter, George Mandley. The family attorney, Michael Dunn, stands around and provides little in the way of help or reason for being there, until...

Edge of Doom

The story concerns a young mentally disturbed man, Martin Lynn (Farley Granger), who goes on a rampage after his sick mother dies. One of the man's biggest beefs is with the Catholic Church who, in addition to slighting him when his mother needed a priest, once refused to bury his father years earlier because he committed suicide. The man, blaming the environment he lives in, goes on a rampage taking revenge on his cheap boss, a mortician and a priest, Father Kirkman (Harold Vermilyea), who refuses to give his poor mother a big funeral. He begins his rampage by killing the hard-line Catholic priest, who slighted him, by beating him with a heavy crucifix. Later, another young priest, Father Roth (Dana Andrews), suspects the young man, now arrested for another crime, for the killing.

A poor and alienated young man (Farley Granger) who is driven to murder when a priest refuses to give is deceased mother an expensive funeral. The film explores the crippling poverty that has prevented the youth from marrying or providing his mother with enough comforts, and has led to his crime. Dana Andrews plays the compassionate assistant of the slain priest who brings about the tormented killer's repentance.

House by the River

A rich novelist, Stephen Byrne, who lives and works by a river, kills his attractive maid after she begins screaming following a drunken pass. The writer, with the help of his limping brother, loads the body into an old sack and the pair throws the body into the river. Unfortunately, the body comes back up and floats by the house days later. Despite desperate attempts by the brothers to get the body, the police end up recovering it.
Byrne, who uses the woman's disappearance and killing for publicity for his books, realizes that his brother is the one who is going to be accused of the crime. Meanwhile, he begins writing a book about the crime in another attempt to cash in on the scandal. His wife and brother begin to fall in love, despite the fact that he has become the prime suspect.

The unsuccessful writer Stephen Byrne tries to force his servant Emily Gaunt sexually while his wife Marjorie Byrne is visiting a friend and accidentally strangles her. His crippled brother John Byrne coincidently comes to his house in that moment, and Stephen asks him to help to get rid of the corpse and avoid an scandal, since his wife would be pregnant. The naive and good John helps his brother to dump the body in the river nearby his house. Stephen uses the disappearance of Emily to blame her and promote his book. When the body is found by the police, all the evidences points to John, and he becomes the prime suspect of the murder.

Kiss Me Deadly

Ralph Meeker plays Mike Hammer, a tough Los Angeles private eye who is almost as brutal as the crooks he chases. Mike and his assistant/secretary/lover, Velda (Maxine Cooper), usually work on "penny-ante divorce cases".
One evening on a lonely country road, Hammer gives a ride to Christina (Cloris Leachman), an attractive hitchhiker wearing nothing but a trench coat. She has escaped from a mental institution, most probably the nearby Camarillo State Mental Hospital. Thugs waylay them and Hammer awakens in some unknown location where he hears Christina screaming and being tortured to death. The thugs then push Hammer's car off a cliff with Christina's body and an unconscious Hammer inside. Hammer next awakens in a hospital with Velda by his bedside. He decides to pursue the case, for vengeance, a sense of guilt (as Christina had asked him to "remember me" if she got killed), and because "she (Christina) must be connected with something big" behind it all.
The twisting plot takes Hammer to the apartment of Lily Carver (Gaby Rodgers), a sexy, waif-like woman who is posing as Christina's ex-roommate. Lily tells Hammer she has gone into hiding and asks Hammer to protect her. It turns out that she is after a mysterious box that, she believes, has contents worth a fortune.
Later, at an isolated beach house, Hammer finds "Lily", who is revealed to be an imposter named Gabrielle, with her evil boss, Dr. Soberin (Albert Dekker). Velda is their hostage, tied up in a bedroom. Soberin and Gabrielle are vying for the contents of the box. Gabrielle shoots Soberin, believing that she can keep the mysterious contents for herself. She also shoots and badly wounds Hammer, who is able to find and release Velda. Now focused solely on the object of her desire, Gabrielle slyly opens the stolen case. The highly unstable radionuclide material inside reaches explosive criticality as it becomes fully exposed. Loud, horrifying sounds emanate from the material as Gabrielle and the house burst into flames; Hammer and Velda barely manage to escape.

A frightened woman is running barefoot on a highway, trying desperately to flag a car. After several cars pass her by, the woman sees another car approaching, and to make sure either the car stops - or, she's killed, she stands in the path of an on-coming car. Private Investigator Mike Hammer is the one at the wheel, and after almost hitting the woman, he tells her to get in. The woman's name is Christina Bailey.. She is obviously on the run, being barefoot and wearing nothing but a trench coat, and the scent of fear. Whoever was after her eventually catches up with them. Christina has information they want, but dies while being questioned. The killers fake an accident by pushing Hammer's car off the road, but, he survives, waking up in hospital two weeks later. As Mike starts to investigate Christina's death, he's told by the police to stay out of it, but, the hard-nosed PI proceeds anyways. Little did he know that Christina's secret would lead to death and destruction.

Shield for Murder

Lieutenant Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien), a 16-year veteran of the police force, has had enough. In a secluded alley late one night, he fatally shoots a bookmaker in the back and steals the $25,000 he was carrying. He then claims the man was killed trying to escape custody. Sergeant Mark Brewster (John Agar), his friend and protégé, believes him, as does the Captain of Detectives, Captain Gunnarson (Emile Meyer). However, newspaper reporter Cabot (Herbert Butterfield) suspects otherwise.
Packy Reed (Hugh Sanders), the dead man's boss, sends private investigators Fat Michaels (Claude Akins) and Laddie O'Neil to tell Barney he wants to see him. Packy gives Barney one chance to return the money, but Barney is uncooperative.
Barney takes his girlfriend, Patty Winters (Marla English), to see a house for sale, then slips away to hide the money outside. When he asks Patty to marry him, she accepts.
Deaf-mute Ernst Sternmuller goes to the police station, but gives a note explaining he witnessed the crime to Barney, not recognizing him. Barney goes to his apartment to try to buy his silence, but when Sternmuller turns him down, angrily pushes the old man away. Sternmuller falls, strikes his head, and dies. Barney stages it to look like an accident, unaware the man had written down his account. Mark finds it and takes it to Gunnarson, who initiates a manhunt for Barney.
Meanwhile, Barney runs into Michaels and O'Neil at a restaurant. Furious that the pair had harassed Patty, he savagely beats them both into unconsciousness with the butt of his revolver.
When Barney finds out he is a wanted man, he persuades Patty to pack up and start a new life with him (without telling her he is on the run). Mark tries to take him in, but is knocked out. Barney changes into his old police uniform and goes into hiding. He arranges for passage to Buenos Aires, but when he goes to pick up the ticket at a crowded high school pool, finds he has been set up. He and a bandaged Michaels shoot it out, while panicked swimmers dive for cover. Barney manages to kill Michaels and heads to the house to retrieve the money. Mark learns from Patty (now aware her boyfriend is a fugitive) the only place the $25,000 could have been hidden. The police converge on the house. When Barney starts shooting, they have no choice but to kill him.

A vicious cop kills a bookie's runner and steals $25,000 from the corpse. He then frames everyone in sight in order to keep the money to buy a new home for his would-be lounge singer girlfriend.

Walk a Crooked Mile

A spy ring has infiltrated Lakeview Laboratory of Nuclear Physics, a Southern California atomic research center. Scotland Yard detective Philip Grayson (Louis Hayward) and FBI agent Dan O'Hara (Dennis O'Keefe) are on the case.

A security leak is found at a Southern California atomic plant. The authorities stand in fear that the information leaked would go to a hostile nation. To investigate the case more efficiently, Dan O'Hara, an FBI agent, and Philip Grayson, a Scotland Yard sleuth, join forces. Will they manage to stop the spy ring from achieving their aim?

Call Northside 777


In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal to look into the case. For some time, McNeal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry

Harry Quincy (Sanders) is an amiable middle-aged man working as a designer in a fabric mill in the small town of Corinth. Younger people in the factory call him "Uncle Harry". He lives as a bachelor in a large house with his two sisters; Lettie (Fitzgerald) and Hester (MacGill). Lettie is pretty but spoiled, and idles days away in bed, feigning numerous ailments. Hester is a widow and is harder working. It is made clear that although the family was rich, the money was lost in the Depression.
Everything is disrupted by the arrival of a new young female designer at the mill. Deborah (Raines) comes from New York City and is slim, elegant, and very well-dressed. She clearly likes Harry and they fall in love. Planning to get married they aim to both live in the big family house, but this involves the sisters finding a new home. Whilst this is not an issue for Hester, Lettie is very resistant. After several months of having their marriage plans sabotaged, one Sunday, Harry and Deborah plan to run off to New York and just get married that evening. However their plan is thwarted when Lettie collapses and is taken to hospital. Deborah makes Harry choose: Lettie or her. He chooses his sister and they part, seemingly forever.
To make things worse, Harry hears that Deborah is getting married in New York. Harry feels betrayed and recalls that Lettie bought some poison for the possible euthanization of their dog.
One night, he slips some of the same poison, found in Lettie's desk, into her late night hot chocolate. Unfortunately due to some confusion, Hester drinks from it instead and drops dead. When the housekeeper sees it, she says that she did not think Lettie had it in her, but was aware that the sisters were always arguing. Harry sees his chance and conspires to blame the death on Lettie, as the more obviously motivated perpetrator. The local townsfolk are all sure of Lettie's guilt. The jury agrees; Lettie is sentenced to hang.
Harry has a change of heart and brings a written confession to the prison governor. However, he thinks Harry is just a nice man trying to save his wicked sister. He says it does not make sense; Harry wanted her dead, but now wants to save her. Lettie sees him and seems happy to hang and leave him with the guilt on his shoulders.
However, to satisfy the Motion Picture Production Code, everything from the discovery of the poison bottle turns out to be imaginary. Harry pours the poison in the bin. Deborah bursts in saying she decided not to marry the other man and has come back for him.

Bachelor Harry Quincey, head designer in a small-town cloth factory, lives with his selfish sisters, glamorous hypochondriac Lettie and querulous widow Hester. His developing relationship with new colleague Deborah Brown promises happiness at last...thwarted by passive, then increasingly active opposition from one sister. Will Harry resort to desperate measures?

Underworld U.S.A.

Fourteen-year-old Tolly Devlin sees four hoods beat his father to death. Twenty years later, the killers have risen to the top of the crime syndicate. Ever since his adolescence, Tolly's (Cliff Robertson) goal has been to avenge his father. Tolly has even become a criminal and gotten himself sent to prison so that he could get close to one of the perpetrators. Tolly becomes as vindictive and sadistic as the men he is after. He rejects the two relationships that could redeem him, his mother-figure (Beatrice Kay) and his moll (Dolores Dorn) in favor of cold, hard vengeance.
Becoming a secret informant for the government, Tolly ends up playing both sides against the middle in his cagey campaign to bring down the remaining mobsters. Tolly's nihilistic vendetta eventually robs him of his own humanity (and more).

Fourteen-year-old Tolly Devlin sees four hoods beat his father to death. Twenty years later, the killers have risen to the top of the crime syndicate and Tolly has a plan for revenge.

The Crimson Kimono

A stripper runs out onto a Los Angeles street in the Little Tokyo district, in a state of undress, mortally wounded by a gunshot. Police detectives Joe Kojaku and Charlie Bancroft, partners and bachelors who share an apartment, are assigned to the case. They find portraits of the stripper, known as Sugar Torch, dressed in a kimono as a geisha, apparently preparing a Japanese-themed act.
The cops search for a man who had been helping the stripper with her act. They interview a student artist, Christine Downes, who draws a sketch of the man for them, and Charlie develops a romantic attraction to her. They meet a man named Hansel who did the portrait of the dead woman and a wigmaker, Roma, who provided the wig for the stage act.
Joe worries for Christine's safety, that her sketch could result in the killer coming after her. He, too, begins to fall for Chris, and the interest is mutual. Charlie's facial reaction makes Joe believe that he resents the multi-racial nature of the relationship. Joe aggressively attacks Charlie during a martial-arts competition, then decides to quit the force, disillusioned after having felt for so long that his partner was free of this kind of racial bias. Charlie confronts Joe, telling him that the look he saw on his face was a flash of hatred for the envy and betrayal he felt towards Joe and his relationship with Chris, and was not racism. Joe doesn't believe him.
A shot is taken at Christine, and it is assumed Hansel is the man behind the killings. It instead turns out to be Roma, who considered the stripper a threat to her relationship with Hansel because of a look that Hansel gave Sugar Torch. Joe relates this to Charlie, and realizes that just as Roma saw what she wanted in Hansel's face, Joe projected his own struggles with racism onto Charlie. Joe asks Charlie if they can still be partners, and Charlie tells him no, that he will always have bad feelings about Joe and Chris. The movie ends with Joe and Chris embracing.

Classic, hard-to-find Sam Fuller pic is intriguing noir about two detective partners, one caucasian and one Japanese, who try to solve a complicated murder case. Unfortunately, trouble arises when along the way, both of them fall in love with the key witness!

99 River Street

Ernie Driscoll is a former boxer who had to give up prize fighting after sustaining an injury in the ring and is now a New York taxi driver.
His wife, Pauline, unhappy living a poor life, is having an affair with a richer man who happens to be a criminal. The thief, after being unable to sell some stolen diamonds, kills Pauline and then attempts to frame her husband for the crime.

Having lost his heavyweight championship match, boxer Ernie Driscoll now drives a taxi for a living and earns the scorn of his nagging wife, Pauline, who blames him for her lack of social status. Involved with jewel thief Victor Rawlins, Pauline is murdered by him when she impedes his ability to fence the jewels. Blamed for his wife's murder, Ernie must track down Rawlins before he leaves the country.

No Man of Her Own

Helen Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is eight months pregnant and unmarried. When she goes to her unfaithful boyfriend Morley for help, all he gives her is a train ticket back to where she came from.
The train crashes while Helen is on board, and she is mistaken for another pregnant woman, who was killed on the train. Helen gives birth to her child and is accepted by the Harknesses, the family of the dead woman's husband, Hugh Harkness, who was also killed in the train crash.
Since the family had never seen their son's new wife, they believe Helen to be her. The family believes her lapses of memory and uncertain behavior are after effects of the train wreck.
With a better life provided for her child, Helen continues the ruse while Bill Harkness (John Lund), who is the brother of the deceased Hugh, falls in love with her. The story takes a turn for the worse when Helen's ex-boyfriend and the father of her child tracks her down several months after the accident. Morley (Lyle Bettger) was called in to identify the body at the morgue after the tragic train accident, and he figures out through a series of events that Helen is hiding and now married into money. Being the conniving fellow that he is, Morley contacts Helen (now living as Patrice) and forces her into wedlock. But before his dastardly plan can take full effect, he winds up dead, and the real twist is who exactly the murderer is.

In a mansion in Caulfield, Illinois, Patrice Harkness and Bill Harkness are waiting for the police. Meanwhile, she recalls her life in San Francisco. The eight-month pregnant Helen Ferguson is dumped by her boyfriend, the crook Stephen 'Steve' Morley, who gives a train ticket to her to New York to stay with his new girlfriend. In the train, Helen befriends the also pregnant Patrice Harkness and her husband Hugh Harkness that are returning from Europe. When they go to the toilet, Patrice asks Helen to hold her wedding ring to avoid losing it, but there is an accident and only Helen survives. She is mistaken by the Hatkness family as being Patrice and welcomed by Mrs. Harkness, Mr. Harkness and Bill at home. Helen decides to pose of Patrice thinking in the future of her baby Hugh and the family treats her like a daughter. Out of the blue, Steve meets Helen in a club and blackmails her, promising to destroy the lives to Mr. and Mrs. Harkness. Now Helen realizes that she must kill Steve to protect her son and the old couple. What will she do?

Caged

A married 19-year-old, Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker), is sent to prison after a botched armed robbery attempt with her equally young husband, Tom, who is killed. While receiving her initial prison physical, she finds out that she is two months pregnant.
Marie has trouble adjusting to the monotonous and cutthroat world of the women's prison. She meets Kitty Stark (Betty Garde), a murderous shoplifter, who says once Marie gets out, Kitty will get her a job "boosting" (shoplifting). Marie does not want to get involved in crime, but Kitty explains the realities of prison life: "You get tough or you get killed. You better wise up before it's too late."
Told she can be paroled after 9 months, Marie witnesses prisoner after prisoner being "flopped back" – granted parole, but then not released from jail because no jobs had been arranged by their parole officers. One flopped-back prisoner, June (Olive Deering), kills herself given the hopeless situation. This saps Marie's hopes of getting out early.
Despite the hardships under sadistic matron Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson), Marie gives birth to a healthy baby and wants to "temporarily" grant full custody to her mother. The intent is to get the baby back after she is released. Marie's callous step-father has decided not to allow the baby into his house. Marie's mother uses the excuses that she's "too old" and "hasn't a penny in [her] name" as reasons why she can't help Marie. Marie is denied a parole. She half-heartedly tries to escape, but is not punished. The prison forces her to permanently give the child up for adoption.
The arrival of "vice queen" Elvira Powell (Lee Patrick) sets off a rivalry with Kitty. Elvira bribes Harper to put Kitty in solitary confinement, where Kitty is beaten. When a kitten is found in the jail yard, Marie attempts to make it a pet. When Harper tries to take the kitten away, a riot ensues, during which the kitten is accidentally killed, and Marie is put into solitary confinement as well.
Before taking Marie to solitary confinement, Harper shaves Marie's head, symbolically stripping her of her innocence. Harper has disagreements with the sympathetic reformist prison superintendent, Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead), especially after this latest incident with Marie. However, since Harper is a political appointee, the police commissioner refuses to fire her, and asks for Benton's resignation, instead. When Benton declares that she will request a public hearing, the resignation issue is dropped.
Out of solitary confinement after a month, Kitty is distraught and mentally ill. After being picked on by Harper in the cafeteria, Kitty stabs Harper to death as the inmates watch and make no attempt to stop it. After her exposure to hardened criminals and sadistic prison guards, Marie actually urges Kitty on.
Up for parole once again, Marie has found a "cashier's job" outside—actually just a ruse to join Elvira Powell's shoplifting gang—and leaves prison a hardened woman after 15 months. Benton asks Marie why she is going into crime when she could go back to school. Marie says she got all the education she needed in prison.
After Marie leaves, an office assistant asks Benton what to do with Marie's file. Benton replies, "Keep it active. She'll be back."

Frightened 19-year-old Marie Allen gets sent to an Illinois penitentiary for being an accomplice in an armed robbery. A sympathetic prison head tries to help, but her efforts are subverted by cruel matron Evelyn Harper. Marie's harsh experiences turn her from doe-eyed innocent to hard-nosed con.

The Locket

A story told in a number of flashbacks from different points of view, this psychological drama tells the story of a bride-to-be (Day) who, as a child, was falsely accused of theft. She grows up to become a kleptomaniac, inveterate liar, and eventually a murderess.
Apparently, all her misdeeds are an attempt by the woman to get her revenge on the world that has falsely accused her of stealing as a child by ruining people's lives. After splitting up with an artist (Mitchum), and her psychiatrist husband (Aherne), she becomes engaged to the son (Raymond) of the woman who had accused her of thievery. Back in the present day, at her wedding, the young woman collapses physically and mentally as she walks to the altar.

Lovely Nancy seems like the ideal bride to fiancée John Willis... until, just before the ceremony, Willis is approached by Harry Blair, claiming to be Nancy's former husband. The tale Blair unfolds (in a flashback within a flashback within a flashback!) paints Nancy as a kleptomaniac, habitual liar, and perhaps worse. But is Blair telling the truth? And does fate have another surprise in store?

The Big Clock


When powerful publishing tycoon Earl Janoth commits an act of murder at the height of passion, he cleverly begins to cover his tracks and frame an innocent man whose identity he doesn't know but who just happens to have contact with the murder victim. That man is a close associate on his magazine whom he enlists to trap this "killer" - George Stroud. It's up to George to continue to "help" Janoth, to elude the police and to find proof of his innocence and Janoth's guilt.

The Dark Corner

In New York, private investigator Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) asks his secretary Kathleen (Lucille Ball) to help him catch a man who has been following him. He does catch the thug (William Bendix), who is carrying identification in the name of Fred Foss and says he was hired by Tony Jardine (Kurt Kreuger). However, actually his name is Stauffer and he is working for Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb), a wealthy art-gallery owner. During the confrontation Stauffer's suit is stained with ink.
Later a car rushes at Brad, apparently attempting to kill him. Brad explains to Kathleen that Jardine is a corrupt lawyer who was Brad's business partner when they lived in San Francisco. Brad had caught Jardine committing theft and blackmail; but Jardine had turned the tables, attacking Brad, forcibly getting him drunk, and putting him behind the wheel of a car. A man was killed and Brad served time for manslaughter. At the time he thought Jardine was satisfied with that, but now it seems not.
The car's license plate leads Brad to Jardine, who is spending the evening with Cathcart's trophy wife Mari (Cathy Downs): they are having an affair, although she does love her husband. She remains out of sight while Brad confronts Jardine, who denies even knowing that Brad was out of prison. The two men fight and Mari calls the police, but Brad quickly leaves the scene. Cathcart, who had hoped they would fight to the death, now arranges for Brad to be framed for murder. Stauffer ambushes both Brad and Jardine in Brad's apartment. He renders Brad unconscious with ether, kills Jardine with a fireplace poker, and leaves the weapon in Brad's hand.
Kathleen and Brad have fallen in love, so she aids him in covering up the crime until he can find and incriminate the real murderer. They find Fred Foss, but he can only tell them his wallet was stolen. They manage to trace Stauffer by contacting dry cleaners until they find the one who treated the distinctively ink-stained suit. But they find Stauffer murdered: rather than pay him off, Cathcart has pushed him through a window to his death. Brad flees the scene by stealing a taxi and driving it to a taxi garage where the police will be unable to pick it out from the others.
Finally Brad and Kathleen identify Hardy Cathcart as being connected to Stauffer. Brad goes to Cathcart's gallery, posing as a wealthy buyer. Taken to Cathcart's office to wait for the man, he tries to search for evidence, but Mari Cathcart happens to come in. Knowing Jardine was a womanizer, Brad guesses about the affair and tells her Jardine has been murdered. "Hardy did it", she moans, and then faints.
Cathcart now arrives, gun in hand. He leads Brad to another part of the building while they talk about the crimes. Since Brad is an ex-con and a murder suspect, Cathcart simply plans to kill him and claim self-defense. But the distraught Mari Cathcart comes up behind and shoots her husband six times.
Later, Kathleen tells the police that their interview will have to wait while she and Brad get married.

Private investigator Bradford Galt has moved to New York from San Fransisco after serving a jail term on account of his lawyer partner Tony Jardine. When he finds someone is tailing - and possibly trying to kill him, Galt believes Jardine is behind it. As he finds there is rather more to it, he is increasingly glad to have his attractive new secretary Kathleen around, for several reason.

Dark Passage

Vincent Parry, wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, escapes from prison and is taken in by Irene Jansen, an artist with an interest in his case. Helped by a friendly cabbie, Parry gets a new face from a plastic surgeon, thereby enabling him to dodge the authorities and find his wife's real killer. He has difficulty staying hidden, in part because Madge Rapf, the spiteful woman whose testimony sent him to prison, and who has an unhealthy interest in Irene, keeps stopping by.

Bogart plays a man convicted of murdering his wife who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence. Bogart finds that his features are too well known, and is forced to seek some illicit backroom plastic surgery. The entire pre-knife part of the film is shot from a Bogart's-eye-view, with us seeing the fugitive for the first time as he starts to recuperate from the operation in the apartment of a sympathetic young artist (played by Bacall) for whom he soon finds affection. But what he's really after is revenge.

A Lady Without Passport

After World War II, immigrants in Cuba who are refused visas for various reasons try to sneak into the U.S. illegally with the help of a human smuggling ring run by Palinov (George Macready), a Levantine café owner. Following the death of one immigrant, U.S. Immigration operative Pete Karczag (John Hodiak) is sent to Havana, where he poses as a Hungarian in need of Palinov's services. During his dangerous undercover investigation, Pete meets Marianne Lorress (Hedy Lamarr), a penniless Austrian refugee of the Buchenwald concentration camp who is waiting to be smuggled into the United States by Palinov. He decides to use her to obtain the place and time of Palinov's next operation.
However Pete falls in love with Marianne, and deducing that she must give herself to Palinov in trade for the trip, talks her into staying in Cuba. Palinov discovers Karczag's true purpose and decides to use his own services. He exposes Pete to Marianne, who angrily decides to go ahead with the smuggling trip. Palinov tries to have Pete killed but the agent overcomes his would-be killer, gets the information from him, and reports it to his superior, Frank Westlake (James Craig). Palinov flies to the United States with Marianne and the other smuggled passengers. However, the airplane is being tracked by U.S. Immigration and is unable to refuel in Florida. Palinov and his pilot crash-land in the Florida Everglades in one last desperate attempt to elude capture.
Palinov forces Marianne to accompany him and his pilot, seeking a boat hidden on a river. He kills one of the passengers trying to board their small raft; the rest flee into the glades. Pete and Westlake take up pursuit but split up when Westlake decides that saving the lives of the remaining immigrants takes priority over arresting Palinov. Pete continues after the fugitives and Marianne. The pilot is bitten by a poisonous snake and is left behind. Pete finds the hidden boat and gives it to Palinov in exchange for Marianne, although Palinov treacherously tries but fails to shoot them during his escape. Pete reassures her that Palinov won't get far—Pete emptied the boat's fuel tank before giving it up.

There is a problem with foreign nationals using Cuba as a convenient jumping off point for illegal entry into the United States. So U.S. Immigration Service Agent Peter Karczag (John Hodiak) is sent to Havana posing as a Hungarian frustrated with the legal immigration process and open to an alternative. By this means he uncovers the human smuggling ring run by Palinov (George Macready). He also meets concentration-camp refugee Marianne Lorress (Hedy Lamarr), a Viennese working in a nightclub and one who has paid to be smuggled into the United States. When Karczag falls in love with her, he becomes conflicted, not wanting her to be among those he plans to have captured in his operation. So he tries to persuade her to stay in Cuba instead of being secretly flown to the United States. Will he succeed? What if his cover is blown?

In a Lonely Place


Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor tell against him. Fortunately, lovely neighbor Laurel Gray gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed, and their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them?

Sudden Fear

Myra Hudson (Crawford) is a successful Broadway playwright who rejects Lester Blaine (Palance) as the lead in her new play. Later, she meets Lester on a train bound for San Francisco, is swept off her feet, and, after a brief courtship, marries him.
Lester learns that Myra is writing her will and plans to leave the bulk of her fortune to a foundation. He plots her murder in cahoots with Irene Neves (Gloria Grahame), an old girlfriend hiding in the wings.
Myra discovers their plans and concocts a diabolical scheme to kill Lester and place the blame on Irene, but cannot bring herself to go through with it. Lester learns of Myra's intentions and chases her through the streets of San Francisco in his car while she is on foot. Myra is able to avoid him but Lester mistakes Irene for Myra and is about to run her down. Myra shouts to stop him but he realizes too late. He tries to avoid Irene but crashes, killing them both. Myra overhears the two pronounced dead and breathes a sigh of relief as she walks off safely into the night.

Actor Lester Blaine has all but landed the lead in Myra Hudson's new play when Myra vetoes him because, to her, he doesn't look like a "romantic leading man." On a train from New York to San Francisco, Blaine sets out to prove Myra wrong...by romancing her. Is he sincere, or does he have a dark ulterior motive? The answer brings on a game of cat and mouse; but who's the cat and who's the mouse?

The Green Glove

Mike Blake (Glenn Ford) is an American paratrooper who travels to France after the end of World War II to try to recover a jewel-encrusted glove that had been stolen from a country church during the war. His quest leads him to a beautiful young tour guide (Geraldine Brooks), and a Nazi collaborator (George Macready) whom he had fought during the war.

In World War II France, American soldier Michael Blake captures, then loses Nazi-collaborator art thief Paul Rona, who leaves behind a gem studded gauntlet (a stolen religious relic). Years later, financial reverses lead Mike to return in search of the object. In Paris, he must dodge mysterious followers and a corpse that's hard to explain; so he and attractive tour guide Christine decamp on a cross-country pursuit that becomes love on the run...then takes yet another turn.

The Lost Moment

A publisher, Lewis Venable, travels from New York to Venice, seeking to buy the 19th Century love letters of the late poet Jeffrey Ashton (whose portrait looks suspiciously like Percy Bysshe Shelley) to a woman named Juliana Bordereau. He learns from a living poet, Charles Russell, that, amazingly, Juliana is still alive at 105.
Lewis assumes a false identity, not immediately announcing his intent. He is given lodging by Juliana and meets great-niece Tina, a pianist.
In time, he discovers that Juliana is in dire need of money, even offering to sell him a valuable painting. He also learns that Tina has a schizophrenic personality, at times deluding herself into believing that she is Juliana, and that Ashton's letters were written to her.
Charles tries to blackmail Lewis, revealing his true identity and purpose. Lewis comes to believe that Ashton was murdered and buried in the garden. Chaos ensues as he begins to leave, the house catching fire. He manages to save Juliana from the blaze, but the precious letters are lost, as is the old woman's will to live.

In a long flashback, a New York publisher is in Venice pursuing the lost love letters of an early-19th-century poet, Jeffrey Ashton, who disappeared mysteriously. Using a false name, Lewis Venable rents a room from Juliana Bordereau, once Jeffrey Ashton's lover, now an aged recluse. Running the household is Juliana's severe niece, Tina, who mistrusts Venable from the first moment. He realizes all is not right when late one night he finds Tina, her hair unpinned and wild, at the piano. She calls him Jeffrey and throws herself at him. The family priest warns Venable to tread carefully around her fantasies, but he wants the letters at any cost, even Tina's sanity.

Two O'Clock Courage

An amnesiac (Tom Conway), accused of murder searches for the truth with the help of a cabbie, Patty Mitchell (Ann Rutherford). The story is essentially a remake of Two in the Dark (1936).

After nearly running over him with her cab, Patty Mitchell picks up a fare who claims to have amnesia. As he fumbles to remember the basic facts of his identity, Patty becomes interested in the stranger and decides to help him in his search. But as the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, and Patty's interest becomes more personal, the stranger finds that he is the prime suspect in a murder case.

This Side of the Law

David Cummins (Kent Smith) is trapped in a dry cistern and wondering whether he will die there. The largest portion of the rest of the film is a flashback to a week earlier then forward, detailing the events that landed him in that precarious pit.
A bright but down-and-out vagrant is tapped by a police officer for looking longingly in a pawn shop window at a revolver. A smart retort to the officer's question has him carted off to jail for "no visible means of support." The following day he's in court hearing "$50 dollars or 30 days."
Listening to the exchange is cagey lawyer Philip Cagle (Robert Douglas), who pays his fine. After a meal and a taxi ride the pair enter the attorney's office, where he explains why. The counselor is the executor of the estate of a wealthy man whom the bum just happens to resemble exactly. The rich man has been missing for seven years minus two weeks and is about to be declared legally dead, which would be inconvenient for the lawyer. (Though it's unclear why).
If David will agree to impersonate the missing man he'll be paid $500. Holding out for $5,000 the pair come to terms then ride to a huge house near a cliff belonging to the missing man. During the journey the lawyer adds some information about the man's task. He must fool three people — the man's wife, his brother and the brother's wife. He adds at the end of the trip, just as they arrive: "By the way, your brother hates you."
David soon finds that it isn't just the brother who is none too fond. His wife Evelyn (Viveca Lindfors) is more than a little estranged, apparently as a result of the husband's many affairs and general callousness before his disappearance. Fortunately, Evelyn doesn't know that husband Malcolm Taylor's most recent affair was with his brother's wife, Nadine Taylor (Janis Paige).
The impersonation comes off well for some time as David insinuates himself into the family until Nadine notices his hands, which lack some tell-tale scars. David tells Philip and the lawyer connives to have her meet him at a lonely spot on the estate, then shoves her off the cliff.
Things move rapidly ahead from this point, past various confusing scenes that ultimately result in Philip tossing David into the cistern. His plan all along was to continue to act as the executor of the estate in order to control the money. (Which, incidentally, makes it somewhat baffling why he wanted to delay the wealthy man being declared legally dead in the first place. Apparently, he needed more time to arrange for Evelyn's death.)
No matter, for David will soon find the will and ability to crawl out of the dry well — but not before discovering the skeletal remains of Malcolm Taylor. He reaches the top just in time to hear the screams of Evelyn, with whom David is now completely besotted. He rushes to rescue her just in time to avoid her suffering the same fate at Philip's hands as Nadine.
All is confessed to the puzzled police and all resolved, with Taylor's wife showing that she now returns David's feelings.

David Cummings, a vagrant, is bailed out of jail by Philip Cagle, an attorney, who hires him to impersonate a missing millionaire, whose presence is necessary in order to distribute a $3,000,000 estate. Cummings' masquerade involves fooling the missing man's wife, his brother and the brother's wife. Cagle, desiring to be rid of Cummings, sets actions in play which ends in murder, attempted murder and the entombment of Cummings. Can he dig his way out and set things right?

Cry Danger

Rocky Mulloy was sentenced to life in prison for a robbery and murder that he didn't commit. He's released five years later when a witness named Delong appears and provides an alibi. Rocky then sets out to find who framed him, hoping that by uncovering the actual criminals, he'll be able to free his friend Danny Morgan, also accused of the same crime.
Delong is lying about the alibi. What he really wants is a share of the missing robbery loot. Rocky insists he wasn't involved. They go see Morgan's wife, Nancy, a former love of Rocky's, who now lives in a trailer park.
Police Lt. Gus Cobb keeps an eye on Rocky because he's still convinced of his guilt. Rocky believes that bookie Louis Castro is the mastermind. He demands $50,000 at gunpoint. Castro won't agree to that, but gives him $500 to bet on a fixed horse race.
Shots are fired at Delong and girlfriend Darlene near the trailer and she is killed. Nancy believes the intended victims were Rocky and herself. Rocky goes back to Castro and plays Russian roulette until Castro reveals where the robbery money can be found. It turns out Morgan was indeed involved and that Nancy now has his share.
Lt. Cobb gradually comes to believe Rocky's innocence. Nancy says she loves him and invites him to run off together with the loot, but Rocky leaves her for the law.

Rocky Mulloy, back in town after serving 5 years of a life sentence for armed robbery, hopes to clear his friend Danny Morgan who's still in prison for the same crime. It won't be easy. Even the witness who cleared Rocky thinks he's guilty; Danny's glamorous wife Nancy, living in a sleazy trailer court, seems lukewarm about getting Danny back; cynical cop Gus Cobb just wants to stir things up in hopes that the missing "hot" $100,000 will surface. Plenty of tough talk, night scenes, deceptive dames and double crosses in this typical film noir.

The Steel Trap

With a million dollars cash in the vault, Jim Osborne (Joseph Cotten), an assistant bank manager in Los Angeles, is tempted to steal from his own bank and flee the country. Doing research at the library, he learns that Brazil has no extradition treaty with the United States. If he steals the money at close of business on a Friday, he will have time to travel to Brazil before the theft is even discovered. But the season when the bank opens on Saturdays is about to begin, so he must take action the same week or else wait for months.
He tells his wife Laurie (Teresa Wright) that the bank is sending him to Rio de Janeiro on business and he wants her and their daughter to travel with him. It is a great opportunity for his career, he says, and he has been given it in preference to the person who would normally be sent, so he cautions her not to talk to anyone about it. Laurie is delighted with the news, but insists their daughter stay at home with Laurie's mother. Jim decides he can send for her after Laurie knows they are staying in Rio.
With his inside knowledge and trusted position, the theft from the bank vault is simple enough, but the travel logistics are difficult. Flights are full, passports and visas are needed on a rush basis, and the Osbornes face a series of delays and miss a connection at New Orleans. At this point an airline employee, made suspicious by Jim's urgent manner and very heavy baggage, tips off a customs officer to check whether he is illegally exporting gold, and the money is revealed.
Unreported large cash transactions are legal in 1952, but the customs man knows it is not at all normal for a bank to send only a single employee with so much cash. Though he suspects some wrongdoing, he cannot reach Jim's boss by telephone before the Osbornes' flight is called, and there is no customs violation, so he lets them go. However, they are on standby and the flight is already full. They will not be able to reach Rio on Sunday. Now fearing arrest, Jim checks into a hotel using a false name. Laurie overhears this, realizes the truth, and confronts him. When he admits what he has done, she wants no part in it; she flies back to Los Angeles.
Within hours Jim realizes that his wife and daughter are far more important to him than his dreams of wealth. Fortunately, it may still be possible to save the situation. Laurie was too upset to tell anyone why she had suddenly returned, and Jim has used his own money for their travel expenses, so the bank's money is intact. After phoning his wife, Jim flies back and just manages to replace the money before it is missed.

A Bank officer discovers a flaw in the U.S. extradition treaty with Brazil and decides to take advantage of it. On Friday, he steals a million dollars from the bank, knowing it won't be missed until the bank opens on the following Monday. He and his wife, who doesn't know what he has done, then take a flight to Brazil. After some difficulties, they get as far as New Orleans, where his wife discovers the reason for their flight and what he has done. She leaves him and returns home. He is now alone with his conscience, and doesn't know if he can get back and return the money to the bank's vault before the start of business on Monday.

The Big Heat

Homicide detective Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) investigates the suicide of officer Tom Duncan, whose wife, Bertha Duncan (Jeanette Nolan) says her husband's been in ill health, lately. Bannion is contacted by the late cop's mistress, Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green), who claims it could not have been ill health. Bannion revisits Duncan's widow, and asks for particulars on the couple's 2nd home, but she resents the implication. The next day, Bannion is rebuffed by Lieutenant Ted Wilks (Willis Bouchey), who is under pressure from "upstairs" to close the case. Chapman is found dead after being tortured, strangled, and covered with cigarette burns. Bannion investigates, although the case is not in his jurisdiction. After receiving threatening calls at his home, Bannion confronts Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), the local mob boss who runs the city, and finds that people are too scared to stand up to the crime syndicate. When warnings to Bannion go unheeded, his car is blown up, and his wife, Katy (Jocelyn Brando) is killed. After accusing his superiors of corruption, Bannion resigns.
When Lagana's second-in-command Vince Stone (Lee Marvin) punishes a girl in a nightclub—by burning her hand with a cigar butt—Bannion stands up to him, which impresses Stone's girlfriend Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame). Marsh tries to get friendly with Bannion, and first offers to buy him a drink, but Bannion refuses - saying she gets her money from her boyfriend, a thief. She follows him after he leaves the bar, all the way back to the hotel room he's living at. When Debby unwittingly reminds Bannion of his late wife, he sends her out of his hotel room. Debby had been seen with Bannion, and when she returns to Stone's penthouse, he accuses her of talking to Bannion about his activities, and he throws a pot of boiling coffee in her face. Debby is taken to hospital by Police Commissioner Higgins, who was playing poker with Stone and his group at the flat. With her face disfigured, and half-covered in bandages, Debby returns to Bannion, who finds her a room at his hotel. Debby identifies the man who had arranged the planting of the dynamite as Larry Gordon (Adam Williams), one of Stone's associates. Bannion forces Gordon to admit to the bombing, as well as revealing that Duncan's widow has papers which could expose Stone and Lagana, and is collecting blackmail payments from Lagana. Bannion refrains from killing Gordon, instead spreading the word that Gordon had talked, and Gordon is soon murdered by Stone's men. Bannion then confronts Mrs. Duncan, accusing her of betraying Chapman, causing her death, and protecting Lagana and Stone. Cops sent by Lagana arrive before he can strangle her and Bannion departs.
Stone decides to kidnap Bannion's young daughter Joyce (Linda Bennett), who had been staying with an aunt and uncle under a police guard. But the police guard is called away, at the behest of Lagana, and the uncle calls in a few army buddies for their protection. Bannion then sets off to deal with Stone, and as he walks out of the building, Lieutenant Wilks (Willis Bouchey) arrives, not only to help protect Bannion's daughter, but, also because he's now prepared to make a stand against the mob. Debby goes to see Mrs. Duncan, noting they are both wearing the same expensive coats and have benefited from an association with gangsters, and kills her. Stone returns to his penthouse and Debby throws a boiling pot of coffee at him. Stone shoots her, but after a short gun battle with Bannion, who had followed him, is captured. As Debby lies dying, Bannion describes his late wife to her in terms of their relationship, rather than the physical "police description" he gave earlier and tells her that she and his wife would have gotten along. Stone is then arrested for murder, Duncan's evidence is made public, and Lagana and Commissioner Higgins are indicted. Bannion returns to his job at Homicide.

Dave Bannion is an upright cop on the trail of a vicious gang he suspects holds power over the police force. Bannion is tipped off after a colleague's suicide and his fellow officers' suspicious silence lead him to believe that they are on the gangsters' payroll. When a bomb meant for him kills his wife instead, Bannion becomes a furious force of vengeance and justice, aided along the way by the gangster's spurned girlfriend Debbie. As Bannion and Debbie fall further and further into the Gangland's insidious and brutal trap, they must use any means necessary (including murder) to get to the truth.

The Killer Is Loose

An employee of a savings and loan company successfully robs a bank as an inside job. At first, bank employee Leon Poole (Wendell Corey) is considered a hero during the bank robbery, but the police quickly figure out he's involved in the crime. The cops catch up with Poole and his young wife at their apartment. Poole's wife is accidentally shot to death during a gunfight. Poole is arrested, convicted and sent to prison for the robbery.
While behind bars, Poole plans his escape and revenge on the policeman who killed his wife, Lt. Sam Wagner (Joseph Cotten). Poole figures the best way to exact revenge is to kill Wagner's wife, Lila (Rhonda Fleming).
Poole escapes while working on a prison honor farm, murdering a guard. He kills again to gain access to a truck. Managing to avoid a highway roadblock set up by the police, Poole heads for the home of his former Army sergeant, Otto Flanders, holding his wife captive and then killing Flanders in cold blood.
Wagner's wife is unaware that she is Poole's target. Wagner manages to get Lila safely out of town, but because she resents her husband's unwillingness to quit law enforcement, she decides to leave him for good. Lila then learns he was merely trying to protect her, so she heads back for their home, where Poole is waiting.

A savings-and-loan bank is robbed; later, a police wiretap identifies teller Leon Poole as inside man. In capturing him, detective Sam Wagner accidentally kills Poole's young wife, and at his trial Poole swears vengeance against Wagner. About three years later, Poole (until then a model prisoner) abruptly takes his chance to kill a guard and escape. It's clear during the ensuing manhunt that Poole is obsessed in pursuit of a single end; but not quite the end everyone supposes.

Woman in Hiding

Deborah Chandler Clark watches police drag a North Carolina river for her body. She recounts the events that brought her to this, beginning when her father, a mill owner, disapproved of a romance between Deborah and the mill's general manager, Seldon Clark.
Her father falls to his death at the mill. Seldon consoles her and proposes. On their honeymoon, a jealous and angry woman named Patricia Monahan turns up and claims she's been romantically involved with Seldon, insisting he married Deborah simply to gain control of her mill.
Deborah demands an annulment of the marriage. While leaving, the brakes fail on her car. She leaps out just before it crashes into the river. Believing she would be unable to prove her husband's guilt, Deborah disappears, moving to Knoxville and going by the name Ann Carter.
An ex-soldier, Keith Ramsay, seems interested in Ann and follows her. What he's really interested in is a $5,000 reward offered by her husband. At a hotel hosting a crowded convention, Seldon nearly succeeds in killing his wife. Keith finally realizes that Deborah is in genuine danger.
Patricia can confirm her story, so Deborah tracks her down. Patricia betrays her, however, still being in love with Seldon. At the mill, he attempts to throw Deborah to her death the same way he murdered her father. In the darkness, he mistakenly kills Patricia instead, and dies himself after a fight with Keith.

Deborah Chandler's rejected suitor, Selden Clark, manages the factory of her father, who dies: did he fall or was he pushed? But charming Clark manages to win her over and marry her. On the honeymoon, Clark's former girl Patricia intervenes and opens Deborah's eyes, alas too late. Now Clark tries to kill Deborah. Believed dead by all but Clark, she flees. But drifter Keith Ramsey recognizes and follows her. Can she trust him? Can he believe her?

Deadline at Dawn

U.S. Navy sailor Alex Winkley (Bill Williams) wakes up from a night of drinking in New York City and finds he has a wad of cash. His memory is hazy, but he knows he got it from a woman he had visited earlier in the evening, Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane).
With the help of dance-hall girl June Goffe (Susan Hayward), he attempts to return the money, only to find out that the woman is dead. The sailor is not sure if he is the killer or not. Alex and June, along with a philosophical cabbie (Paul Lukas), stay up all night, attempting to solve the murder mystery before the sailor has to catch a bus to the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, in the morning. Their deadline is at dawn.
During the film, the many false leads and red herrings involve a blind piano player named Sleepy Parsons (Marvin Miller) and a young couple. Bartelli had been in the business of blackmailing men with whom she had had affairs, so many suspects are possible. The woman's brother Val (Joseph Calleia) adds a touch of menace to the plot. The surprise ending resolves all issues, including the relationship between Alex and June.

Alex, a radio-specialist sailor on leave, recovers from a drink-induced blackout with a large sum of money belonging to Edna Bartelli, a B-girl who invited him home to fix her radio. He tries to return the money with the reluctant aid of June Goffe, a sweet but oh-so-tired dance hall girl. They find Edna murdered. Not quite sure he didn't do it himself, Alex and June have four hours in the dead of night to find the real killer before his leave ends. Their quest brings them into contact with a sleazy kaleidoscope of minor characters as the clues get more and more tangled.

Hoodlum Empire

Former gangster Joe Gray (Russell) joined the army during World War II and became a hero is now leading a respectable life. When he is called before a grand jury to testify against organized crime activities, his former mobster colleagues prepare to take measures to ensure that he doesn't.

A former gangster who joined the army during World War II and became a hero is now leading a respectable life, out of the rackets. However, when he is called before a grand jury probing organized crime activities, his former colleagues in the mob are afraid he'll spill the beans, and prepare to take measures to ensure that he doesn't.

When Strangers Marry

A naive woman (Hunter) comes to New York City to meet her salesman husband (Jagger) whom she only met months before, and discovers that he may be a murderer.

A naive small-town girl comes to New York City to meet her husband, and discovers that he may be a murderer.

Strange Bargain

Because the firm is bankrupt, bookkeeper Sam Wilson learns from his boss, Malcolm Jarvis, that he is losing his job. Jarvis then makes a strange proposition, saying he intends to commit suicide, but wants Sam to make it look like a murder, in order for wife Edna and son Sydney to inherit Jarvis's life insurance.
Sam declines, but when he goes to see Jarvis and finds his dead body, he reluctantly goes along with the scheme. He finds an envelope with $10,000 that Jarvis has left behind for him, which he hides from Georgia, his wife. He disposes of the weapon as well, so Jarvis's fingerprints from the suicide won't be found.
Lt. Webb of the police is suspicious of Jarvis's business partner, Timothy Hearne. In the meantime, Sam's conscience gets the better of him. When he goes to see Edna Jarvis to confess his role in her husband's death, Edna reveals she's the one who committed the murder, Jarvis having changed his mind about the fake suicide. Edna is about to kill Sam as well when Webb shows up in the nick of time.

Sam Wilson is having a hard time making ends meet. When he asks his boss for a raise, he finds out that the company is closing down and he'll be out of a job. His boss decides to commit suicide so that his family can benefit from his insurance. He asks Sam to help make it look like murder. Sam thinks he has convinced the boss not to commit suicide. But the boss does it anyway, so Sam follows the instructions the boss had given him, to make it look like murder.

Rogue Cop

Christopher Kelvaney is a crooked police officer who takes bribes and payoffs from criminals and other nefarious folk. His brother Eddie is a young member of the police force who is honest and loyal.
In a penny arcade, a drug dealer is stabbed to death by a man who claims the territory for himself, and Eddie witnesses a gangland murder. Mob boss Dan Beaumonte gives orders to Kelvaney to buy his brother's silence. Eddie refuses, and Kelvaney is unable to persuade Eddie's sweetheart, nightclub singer Karen Stephenson, to change his mind.
The ruthless Beaumonte brutally mistreats his moll Nancy Corlane, who then tries to help Kelvaney do what he has to do. Kelvaney exposes the fact that Karen was once a mobster's girlfriend in Miami. He gets her to admit that she's not in love with Eddie and is willing to let him go if it will save his life.
An out-of-town button-man named Langley is brought in to kill both brothers, but succeeds only in killing Eddie. His conscience aroused, Kelvaney goes after the mob leaders himself. He admits his corruption to superiors, but asks for a chance to bring them evidence that will put Beaumonte and others behind bars, particularly after Nancy is also found murdered. Kelvaney succeeds in gaining revenge for his brother.

Detective Chris Kelvaney has a brother, Eddie, who also is a policeman. He witnessed a murderer running away from the scene of the crime. Chris has contacts with the gangster Beaumonte, who is willing to pay $15,000 if Eddie withdraws his testimony. But Eddie is an honorable cop and refuses. Beaumonte makes sure that Eddie is killed. After his death, Kelvaney starts to track down his brother's killer.

Chicago Calling

Bill Cannon's drinking costs him his family, wife Mary and daughter Nancy leaving him for good. A struggling photographer, Bill pawns his camera to help pay for Mary's trip, then goes on another alcohol binge.
Finally returning home two days later, Bill meets a telephone installer, Jim, who is removing the phone because of an overdue bill. A telegram from Mary is also there. Their daughter Nancy has been seriously injured in a car crash near Chicago, and Mary wires that she will call Bill to tell him whether Nancy survives.
In desperation, Bill persuades Jim to keep the phone line there for 24 more hours. He desperately seeks work, unable now to use his camera. Things go from bad to worse when a young boy, Bobby Kimball, gets into a bicycle accident, hitting Bill's dog.
Bill learns that Bobby is being raised by an abusive sister, Babs, who intends to place him in an orphanage. Bobby offers his savings, $60, to Bill to pay for the phone service. They sneak into the house to take the money. But the phone company's office is closed by the time Bill arrives.
At a baseball game in the park, Bobby loses the money. When it is recovered, a conscience-stricken Bill decides to return it, but Babs' boyfriend catches him calling Chicago to find out about his daughter, thinks Bill is lying, and calls the police. Bill then discovers from Mary that their daughter has died. When the police arrive to arrest him, Jim and Bobby explain what happened. The cops show Bill mercy and let him go.

A poor father makes monumental efforts to get money to keep his phone installed, so he can get word on his critically injured little daughter.

The Asphalt Jungle

When criminal mastermind Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe) is released from prison after seven years, he goes to see a bookie named Cobby (Marc Lawrence) in an unnamed Midwest river city, who arranges a meeting with Alonzo Emmerich (Louis Calhern), a lawyer. Emmerich listens to Doc's plan to steal jewelry worth half a million dollars or more. Doc needs $50,000 to hire three men—a "box man" (safecracker), a driver, and a "hooligan"—to help him pull off the caper. Emmerich agrees to provide the money and assume the responsibility for disposing of the loot.
Doc hires Louie Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso), a professional safecracker. Ciavelli only trusts Gus Minissi (James Whitmore), a hunchbacked diner owner, as the getaway driver. The final member of the gang is Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), a friend of Gus. Dix explains his goal to Doll Conovan (Jean Hagen), who is in love with him. His dream is to buy back the horse farm that his father lost during the Great Depression.
During the crime (an 11-minute sequence in the film), the criminals carry out their work. Ciavelli hammers through a brick wall to get into the jewelry store, deactivates a door alarm to let in Doc and Dix, and opens the main safe using home-brewed nitroglycerine ("the soup"). On their way out, Dix slugs an arriving security guard, who drops his revolver, which discharges and wounds Ciavelli in the belly. The men get away unseen, but a police manhunt begins.
Ciavelli insists on being taken home by Gus. Dix and Doc take the loot to Emmerich, who is broke. He had sent a private detective named Bob Brannom (Brad Dexter) to collect sums owed to him, but Brannom returned with excuses. Emmerich then plotted to double cross the others with Brannom's help. Emmerich suggests to Doc that he leave the jewelry with him, but Doc and Dix become suspicious. Brannom then pulls out his gun. Dix kills Brannom but is wounded himself. Doc tells Emmerich to contact the insurance companies and offer to return the valuables for 25% of their value.
Emmerich disposes of Brannom's body in the river, but the police find the corpse. When they question Emmerich, he lies about his whereabouts and calls Angela Phinlay (Marilyn Monroe in her first important role), his mistress, to set up an alibi.
Under pressure from Police Commissioner Hardy (John McIntire), a police lieutenant named Ditrich (Barry Kelley) (who had previously protected Cobby for money) beats the bookie into confessing everything in a vain attempt to save himself (he is later arrested for corruption).
With the confession, Hardy arrests Emmerich, persuading Angela to tell the truth. Emmerich is permitted to leave the room for a minute and commits suicide. Gus is picked up, then attacks Cobby at the jail. When the police break down Ciavelli's door, they find they have interrupted his funeral.
That leaves Doc and Dix, who separate. Doc asks a taxi driver to drive him to Cleveland. They stop at a roadside diner, where two policemen recognize and arrest Doc. Doll gets Dix a car, then insists on going along. When he passes out from loss of blood, Doll takes him to a doctor, who phones the police to report the gunshot wound. Dix regains consciousness during a plasma transfusion and escapes before they arrive. With Doll, he makes it to his Kentucky horse farm across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. He stumbles into the pasture, collapses, and dies.

When the intelligent criminal Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider is released from prison, he seeks a fifty thousand-dollar investment from the bookmaker Cobby to recruit a small gang of specialists for a million-dollar heist of jewels from a jewelry. Doc is introduced to the lawyer Alonzo D. Emmerich that offers to finance the whole operation and buy the gems immediately after the burglary. Doc hires the safecracker Louis Ciavelli, the driver Gus Minissi and the gunman Dix Handley to the heist. His plan works perfectly but bad luck and betrayals compromise the steps after the heist and the gangsters need to flee from the police.

Armored Car Robbery

Mastermind Dave Purvis (William Talman) is a professional criminal who devises a scheme to rob an armored car on its last pickup of the day. He recruits Benny McBride, who brings Mapes & Foster to complete the gang of thieves.
Benny needs money because Yvonne (Adele Jergens), his striptease artist wife, has lost interest in him and is seeing another man. Unbeknownst to Benny, the man she is two-timing him with is Purvis.
The robbery itself, at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, begins as planned but goes badly wrong when a passing police patrol car intervenes. Purvis kills one of the police officers from the patrol car and he and his fellow robbers make their getaway. Lt. Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw), the dead policeman's partner, takes it upon himself to bring in his partner's killer and throws himself into the case, assisted by a rookie officer.
Meanwhile, Purvis's gang unravels bit by bit as distrust and paranoia begins to build. Benny, wounded by police during the heist, is killed by Purvis as he demands his share of the loot from the robbery and attempts to seek medical help. Foster is killed by the police as the three attempt escape. After Mapes (Steve Brodie) gets away, he looks up Yvonne at the Burly Q where she works, intending to use her as a means to find Purvis, who has kept all the loot for himself. The waiting police, however, arrest Mapes at the Burly Q and learn Purvis's identity.
After a further manhunt, Lt. Cordell and his team corner Purvis and Yvonne at Los Angeles Metropolitan Airport, and Purvis is crushed by a taking-off plane as he tries to escape across the runway.

Dave Purvis takes pride in being unknown to the law, though famed among fellow crooks as a planner He plots a holdup in meticulous detail; but things go wrong, a cop and two robbers are killed, and Purvis hides out with the money while Lieut. Cordell, friend of the dead cop, investigates. Purvis's new getaway plan shows promise, but may have one tiny flaw.

Dishonored Lady

Madeleine Damien is the fashion editor of a slick Manhattan magazine called Boulevard. Men are attracted to her, including boss Victor Kranish, wealthy advertiser Felix Courtland and a former assistant, Jack Garet, who is now working for Courtland and blackmailing her about events from her past.
Madeleine makes a suicide attempt and is headed toward a breakdown. She crashes her car near the home of a psychiatrist, then, while under his care, quits her job and moves into a smaller flat under a new identity. She becomes interested in painting and in David Cousins, a handsome neighbor.
After having marriage proposed to her by David, who knows nothing of her past, Madeleine is confronted by Courtland, who is still interested in her. After she slips away from his home, Garet arrives. Accused of a home burglary by Courtland, Garet bludgeons him with a table lighter. Madeleine is charged with the murder and is too depressed to defend herself. David realizes the truth, confronts Garet and manages to save Madeleine just in time.

Madeleine Damien is the fashion editor of a slick Manhattan magazine by day and a lively party girl by night. Unfortunately, the pressures of her job, including kowtowing to a hefty advertiser, and her bad luck with men are driving her to a breakdown. She seeks the help of a psychiatrist, and under his orders, quits her job and moves into a smaller flat under a new identity. She becomes interested in painting and a handsome neighbor. He soon finds out about her past when an ex-suitor implicates her in a murder.

Too Late for Tears


One night on a lonely highway, a speeding car tosses a satchel of money, meant for somebody else, into Jane and Alan Palmer's back seat. Alan wants to turn it over to the police, but Jane, with luxury within her reach, persuades him to hang onto it "for a while." Soon, the Palmers are traced by one Danny Fuller, a sleazy character who claims the money is his. To hang onto it, Jane will need all the qualities of an ultimate femme fatale...and does she ever have them!

My Name Is Julia Ross

In London, Julia Ross (Nina Foch) goes to a new employment agency, desperate for work. When Mrs. Sparkes (Anita Sharp-Bolster) learns that she has no near relations, she recommends Julia for a job as a live-in personal secretary to a wealthy widow, Mrs. Hughes (May Whitty). Mrs. Hughes approves and insists that she move that very night into her house. Two days later, Julia awakes as a prisoner at an isolated seaside estate in Cornwall.
All her possessions have disappeared and the young woman is told she is really Marion, the wife of Ralph Hughes (George Macready), Mrs. Hughes's son. The staff have been told that she has suffered a nervous breakdown; as a result, they ignore her seemingly wild claims and her attempts to escape are all foiled.
Julia writes a letter to her only close friend and admirer, Dennis Bruce (Roland Varno), and cleverly leaves it where it can be found. The Hughes substitute a blank sheet of paper and allow her to post it, unaware that Julia has anticipated them and written a second letter. Even so, when a "doctor" comes in response to a fake poisoning attempt, she blurts out her plan to him, only to discover that he (along with Mrs. Sparkes) is in on the scheme. He is dispatched to London to intercept the letter. When the real doctor shows up, Julia thinks he's also a fake and refuses to see him. The doctor recommends she be taken to a hospital immediately, but Mrs. Hughes persuades him to come back in the morning.
That night, Julia discovers a secret passage to her room and overhears Ralph admit to his mother that he murdered his real wife in a fit of rage and disposed of her body in the sea. Julia's captors have to make it appear that she has committed suicide before the doctor can take her away.
Julia throws her gown out the window, making it look like she threw herself to her death, then hides in the secret passage. When the doctor drives up, Mrs. Hughes delays him so that her son can get to the body first. Ralph picks up a rock to ensure that Julia is really dead, but is stopped by Dennis and a policeman, who had been alerted by the letter. (The fake doctor had been apprehended in London when he tried to intercept the letter.) When Ralph tries to flee, he is shot down.

Julia Ross secures employment, through a rather nosy employment agency, with a wealthy widow, Mrs. Hughes, and goes to live at her house. 2 days later, she awakens - in a different house, in different clothes, and with a new identity. She's told she is the daughter-in-law of Mrs. Hughes, and has suffered a nervous breakdown. I'd Julia really 'Julia', or, is it true, that she's lost all memory of who she is?

Shack Out on 101

Slob (Marvin), the leacherous short-order cook at the seaside greasy-spoon diner of sarcastic war veteran George (Wynn), lusts after sexy waitress Kotty (Moore). Also interested in Kotty is a scientist (Lovejoy), who spends the better part of his free time at the diner's counter. He works down the highway at a top-secret military base. As it turns out, Slob isn’t just a short-order cook. He’s also a spy using the diner as a home base for smuggling nuclear secrets out of the country through a connection with one of the diner’s regulars.

At an isolated, seaside greasy-spoon cafe live George, the sarcastic owner; Slob, the potentially violent cook; and Kotty, the sexy waitress all the men lust after. Plus an occasional customer, including "Professor Sam", Kotty's boyfriend from a nearby research facility. And something's going on under the potentially explosive surface emotions...nuclear secrets being smuggled out of the country.

The Great Flamarion


Flamarion, expert marksman, is entertaining people in a show which features Connie, beautiful woman and her husband Al. Flamarion and Connie fall in love and decide to get rid of the alcoholic husband.

Terror by Night

In London, Vivian Vedder (Renee Godfrey) verifies that a carpenter has completed a coffin for her recently deceased mother's body, which she is transporting to Scotland by train. She boards the train that evening, as do Lady Margaret Carstairs (Mary Forbes), who owns and is transporting the famous Star of Rhodesia diamond; Lady Margaret's son Roland (Geoffrey Steele); Holmes, whom Roland has hired to protect the diamond; Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey), who is also worried about the diamond's safety; and Watson and his friend Major Duncan-Bleek (Alan Mowbray). Holmes briefly examines the diamond.
Shortly afterward, Roland is murdered and the diamond is stolen. Lestrade, Holmes, and Watson learn nothing conclusive in questioning the other passengers, and Holmes is pushed out of the train, nearly to his death, but he climbs back inside and discovers a secret compartment in the coffin carrying Miss Vedder's mother. He suspects that one of the people on the train is the notorious jewel thief Colonel Sebastian Moran.
Upon further questioning, Miss Vedder admits that a man paid her to transport the coffin. As Watson and Duncan-Bleek join the group, Holmes reveals that he swapped the diamond with an imitation while examining it. Lestrade takes possession of the real diamond.
In the luggage compartment, Holmes and Watson find a train guard murdered with a poisoned dart. Meanwhile, a street criminal named Sands (Skelton Knaggs) incapacitates the conductor. Sands was hidden inside the coffin, and is in cahoots with Duncan-Bleek, who is in fact Colonel Moran. Sands and Moran go to Lestrade's room, where Sands knocks him unconscious and steals the diamond from him, but Moran double-crosses Sands, shooting him dead with the same dart gun he used to kill Roland and the guard.
The train makes an unexpected stop to pick up several Scottish policemen led by Inspector McDonald (Boyd Davis). Holmes informs McDonald that Duncan-Bleek is really Moran, and McDonald arrests Moran and finds the diamond in his vest, but Moran seizes a policeman's gun and pulls the emergency cord to stop the train. During a scuffle in which the lights are turned off, Holmes subdues and handcuffs Moran, then secretly hides him under a table. When the lights are turned on again, the officers leave the train with Lestrade, his coat covering his face, believing he is Moran. As the train departs, Lestrade captures the thieves in the train station, and Holmes reveals to Watson and Moran that he recognized McDonald as an impostor and recovered the diamond from him during the fight.

Holmes is hired by Roland Carstairs to prevent the theft of the Star of Rhodesia, an enormous diamond owned by Carstairs' mother, Lady Margaret. Believing the diamond will be stolen on a train trip from London to Edinburgh, Holmes deftly switches diamonds with Lady Margaret while in her compartment. Soon after, Roland is murdered and the fake diamond is stolen. Red herrings abound as Holmes, aided by Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade, discover the murderer's hiding place and deduce that long-time foe Moriarty's henchman Colonel Sebastian Moran is somehow involved in the crime.

The People Against O'Hara

James Curtayne (Tracy) has retired from criminal law, but when Johnny O'Hara (Arness), a boy from the neighborhood, is accused of a murder, Curtayne takes the case. The boy's parents plead for Curtayne's help, even though they are too poor to pay him a fee.
A man Johnny knew was shot and killed during the night by two people in a passing car. The only witness, from a distance, was a man coming out of a diner. Johnny flees when the cops come to question him. Once the boy is in custody, Detective Ricks (O'Brien) and District Attorney Barra (John Hodiak) explain that a gun owned by Johnny appears to be the murder weapon. And a young punk, Pete Korvac (William Campbell), is claiming that he was Johnny's accomplice in the crime and is willing to testify that Johnny pulled the trigger.
Johnny insists he was working all night, but no one can verify that. What he refuses to tell the authorities, or even his own lawyer, is that he was with Katrina Lanzetta (Yvette Duguay), the young wife of a local gangster known as Knuckles (Eduardo Ciannelli). She has fallen in love with Johnny, but he is determined to protect her honor and her safety.
Curtayne's daughter Ginny (Diana Lynn) didn't want her widower dad to take on such a stressful case because he is a recovering alcoholic. Ginny lives with him, putting her own future with boyfriend Jeff (Richard Anderson) on hold. Curtayne expresses confidence he can handle the strain. He goes to see the Korvac family, trying to learn why young Pete, who has a criminal past, would double-cross Johnny this way. He also visits Knuckles, who knew the victim and is volunteering to help Curtayne, but the lawyer neither trusts nor believes Knuckles and declines his offer.
The case begins to go badly for the defense. Johnny's alibi about being at work proves to be a lie. Pete's chatty testimony is convincing and Curtayne has been unable to rattle him. Curtayne confides in Ricks, his friend, that he is becoming forgetful at inopportune times in court. Desperate, knowing that Johnny's life is on the line, Curtayne not only resumes drinking, he bribes the eyewitness with $500 after learning the man, Sven Norson (Jay C. Flippen), is willing to change his story for a price.
D.A. Barra discovers the bribe. He wins the case, convicting Johnny of murder, then must decide what to do about Curtayne's behavior, possibly seeking to have him disbarred. Curtayne, however, is tipped off by Ricks about the boy's relationship with gangster Knuckles' wife, who is willing to come forward and accept the consequences now that Johnny's been found guilty.
Curtayne tries to set up Knuckles, certain that he is the one behind the murder. He wears a wire for the police, looking for a confession. Instead, it turns out one of Pete Korvac's brothers is the man who did the fatal shooting, and Curtayne ends up at gunpoint. By the time Ricks, Barra and others tailing him can get there to make an arrest, Curtayne ends up fatally shot.

Jim Curtayne, formerly a successful criminal defense attorney and currently a recovering alcoholic, has turned to civil law because of his problems with the bottle, daughter Ginny delays marrying in order to keep her dad on the straight and narrow, but when the son of neighborhood friends is accused of murder, he is lured into returning to criminal law. Complications arise as the initially overconfident Curtayne experiences lapses inn memory and judgment as well as an uncooperative client. He finds himself well over his head as he tries to reclaim his self-confidence and professional standing.

Murder, My Sweet

Temporarily blinded with his eyes bandaged, private detective Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) is being interrogated by police lieutenant Randall (Don Douglas) about two murders.
He tells how he was hired by menacing Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki) to locate Velma Valento, a former girlfriend of whom Moose lost track while serving eight years in prison. They go to the nightclub where Velma last worked as a singer, but the owner died years earlier, and no one remembers her. Marlowe tracks down Jessie Florian (Esther Howard), the alcoholic widow of the nightclub's owner eight years ago, who claims not to know what's become of Velma. However, Marlowe finds a photo of Velma that Jessie hid from him, and she then says Velma is dead. Later, from a safe distance, Marlowe observes a clearly disturbed Jessie make a phone call.
The next morning the suave Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton) turns up at Marlowe's office, offering $100 if Marlowe will act as his bodyguard when he goes to a secluded canyon at midnight as a go-between to pay a ransom for some stolen jewels. In the canyon, Marlowe is knocked unconscious. Marlowe comes to when, in a delirious state, he sees a young woman shine a flashlight on his face and run away. The money is gone and Marriott has been viciously killed. When Marlowe reports the murder, the police make the mistake of asking him if he knows a Jules Amthor and warn him not to interfere in the case.
Posing as a reporter, Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley) tries to pry information out of Marlowe about the murder. She mentions that the jewels were jade and he sees through her. She introduces him to her wealthy father (Miles Mander) and his seductive second wife Helen (Claire Trevor). Grayle collects rare jade and was attempting to recover a necklace worth $100,000, robbed from Helen while she was out dancing with Marriott. Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger), a psychic healer who treated both Helen and Marriott, shows up just as Marlowe is leaving. Helen retains Marlowe to try to recover the jade, but Anne tries bribing him off to keep out of it.
Moose Malloy forces Marlowe to go with him to "meet somebody", who turns out to be Amthor. Marlowe suspects that Amthor and Marriott were in league, setting up Helen to get the jade, but something went wrong with the plot. Amthor duped Moose into doing his dirty work. Amthor has Marlowe beaten up and drugs him for three days, trying to find out where the necklace is, but Marlowe escapes and tells Moose how he has been tricked. Marlowe goes to Ann and realizes she was the young woman who shone the light on his face after he discovered Marriott's body. They find a mutual attraction in each other. When the police ask Ann's father about the family beach house, which Marriott rented, Marlowe goes there.
Helen is hiding at the beach house from the police. Marlowe deduces that she hired him only to set him up for Amthor's interrogations, and that Ann was trying to save him from the set-up with her bribe. Helen attempts to entice Marlowe into helping her murder Amthor, who is blackmailing her, by luring him back to the beach house the next night for the necklace. Although suspicious, Marlowe goes along but finds Amthor dead, his neck snapped by a strong pair of hands. Moose is waiting for Marlowe at his office. Marlowe shows Moose the photo he took from Jessie, and as he suspected, it is a fake intended to throw anyone looking for Velma off the track. Marlowe tells Moose to lay low until the next night, when he will take Moose to Velma.
At the beach house, Marlowe has Moose wait outside while he meets with Helen, who is really Velma, to find out what happened to the necklace but she pulls a gun on him. She faked the robbery and the ransom to kill Marlowe after being tipped off by Jessie that he was looking for Velma. She killed Marriott while Marlowe went down into the canyon and was about to kill Marlowe when Ann came along, worried that her jealous father might be trying to kill Marriott. As Helen is about to shoot Marlowe, a lovesick Grayle shows up with Ann. He takes Marlowe's gun and kills Helen. Moose hears the shot and finds his Velma lying dead. Enraged, Moose lunges for Grayle, who shoots him. Marlowe attempts to intercede as the gun goes off and is blinded by the flash. Three more shots are fired.
His story concluded, the blinded private eye is told that Moose and Grayle shot each other in a struggle for Marlowe's gun. Marlowe is escorted out of the building by Detective Nulty (Paul Phillips), not realizing that Ann was also there, overhearing every word, and expresses his attraction for her to the detective. In the back seat of a taxi cab, the bandaged Marlowe recognizes her perfume and they kiss.

This adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel 'Farewell, My Lovely', renamed for the American market to prevent filmgoers mistaking it for a musical (for which Powell was already famous) has private eye Philip Marlowe hired by Moose Malloy, a petty crook just out of prison after a seven year stretch, to look for his former girlfriend, Velma, who has not been seen for the last six years. The case is tougher than Marlowe expected as his initially promising enquiries lead to a complex web of deceit involving bribery, perjury and theft, and where no one's motivation is obvious, least of all Marlowe's.

Johnny Eager

Johnny Eager (Robert Taylor) masquerades as a taxi driver for his gullible parole officer, A. J. Verne (Henry O'Neill), but in reality, he is the ruthless head of a powerful gambling syndicate. Verne introduces him to socialite Lisbeth "Liz" Bard (Lana Turner), a sociology student. Johnny and Liz are attracted to each other, but then he discovers that she is the stepdaughter of his longtime nemesis, John Benson Farrell (Edward Arnold). As a crusading prosecutor, Farrell was responsible for sending Johnny to prison, and now as the district attorney, he has gotten an injunction preventing Johnny's expensive dog racing track from opening.
Johnny decides to use Liz as leverage against her stepfather. When she comes to see him, he has Julio (Paul Stewart), one of his underlings, burst in and pretend to try to kill him. During the faked struggle, Julio drops his gun. Lisbeth picks it up and shoots Julio when he seems to have the upper hand. Johnny then hustles her out of the room before she can realize that the gun is full of blanks and Julio's blood is actually ketchup. Later, Johnny threatens to expose her as a murderer unless Farrell removes the injunction. Farrell gives in.
Johnny is depicted as a man without a conscience. When childhood friend Lew Rankin (Barry Nelson) gets fed up with his subordinate role in the gang and starts plotting against him, Johnny murders him without the slightest qualm. He lies to his devoted girlfriend Garnet (Patricia Dane) to get her to go to Florida while he romances Liz. Mae (Glenda Farrell), a prior girlfriend, asks him to help get her incorruptible policeman husband transferred back to his old precinct because his long commute is straining their marriage. Johnny not only lies, claiming he no longer has any influence, he also hides the fact that he got the man transferred in the first place because he would not look the other way. When Jimmy Courtney (Robert Sterling), Liz's high society former boyfriend, becomes alarmed because Liz is going to pieces due to a guilty conscience, he offers Johnny all his money to leave the country and take Liz with him. Johnny cannot figure out his "angle", why he would do such a selfless thing. In fact, the only soft spot Johnny seems to have is for his intellectual, alcoholic right-hand man, Jeff Hartnett (Van Heflin), and even he is not sure why. Jeff has an insight, telling his boss that "even Johnny Eager has to have one friend."
However, when Johnny learns that Liz intends to turn herself in, he discovers the meaning of love for the first time in his life. He confesses to her that he staged the whole incident, but she does not believe him. To prove his claim, he decides to produce a live Julio, but Julio has defected to Johnny's dissatisfied partner, Bill Halligan (Cy Kendall). Johnny manages to bring Julio (at gunpoint) to Liz, but in the process, touches off a gunfight with Halligan and his men. He kills Halligan and Julio, but is himself shot down by a policeman on his way home after his shift, who in a twist of fate turns out to be Mae's husband.

Ruthless hood Johnny Eager is pretending to his parole officer that he has chucked the rackets and is now a full-time taxi driver. In fact, he's as deep in as he ever was and desperately needs official permission to open his new dog track. When he meets up with Lisbeth Bard, he finds he not only has a stunning new girlfriend but a possible way to get his permit.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

On a rainy night in 1928 in a Pennsylvania factory town called Iverstown, thirteen-year-old Martha Ivers (Janis Wilson) tries to run away from the guardianship of her wealthy, domineering aunt with her friend, the street-smart, poor Sam Masterson (Darryl Hickman), but is caught and brought home. Sam comes for her, but Martha's aunt hears her calling to him. While Sam slips out unnoticed, Mrs. Ivers starts beating Martha's cat with her cane. Martha wrestles it away from her and strikes her brutally, causing her to fall down the stairs and die. The event is witnessed by Walter O'Neil (Mickey Kuhn), the son of Martha's tutor (Roman Bohnen). Martha lies about the incident to Walter's father, and Walter backs her up.
Mr. O'Neil suspects what happened, but presents Martha's version of events to the police, that an intruder is responsible; with his leverage he makes Martha marry his son. When the police identify a former employee of the aunt as the murderer, the two O'Neils and Martha help convict him; he is hanged.
Seventeen or eighteen years later, the elder O'Neil is dead. Walter (now played by Kirk Douglas) is the district attorney, while Martha (Barbara Stanwyck) has used her inheritance from her aunt to build a large business empire. Their marriage is one-sided; he loves her, but she does not love him.
Sam (Van Heflin), now a former soldier and a detective, stops in the small town by chance to have his car repaired after an accident. While waiting, he goes to look at his old home, now a boarding house. There he meets Antonia "Toni" Marachek (Lizabeth Scott), who has just been released from jail. She is later picked up for violating her probation by not returning to her hometown. Sam goes to see Walter to see if he can use his influence to get her released.
Walter is convinced Sam has blackmail in mind. When Martha reacts with joy at seeing Sam, Walter also becomes jealous. Walter forces Toni to set Sam up. Sam is beaten up and driven out of town, but he is too tough to be intimidated. When all else fails, Walter makes a halfhearted attempt to kill Sam himself, but is easily disarmed. Martha then inadvertently blurts out the couple's fears of blackmail, only to learn that Sam did not witness the death. Martha breaks down and laments that he left without her all those years ago, taking with him her only chance for love and freedom.
Sam is torn between his old love and his new. Although he eventually forgives Toni for betraying him, he and Martha spend an idyllic day together, rekindling his feelings for her.
Walter arranges to meet Sam to finally settle matters. Before Sam arrives, Walter gets drunk and Martha finds out about the meeting. When Walter falls down the stairs, Martha urges Sam to kill her unconscious husband. Sam instead brings Walter around. Martha pulls out a gun and threatens to shoot Sam in "self defense" as an intruder. Sam tells her it would work ... if she can get Walter to corroborate her story. He then turns his back on her and leaves.
Walter embraces and kisses his wife; then he points the gun at her midriff. Oddly relieved, she puts her hand over his hand on the trigger and presses. As she is dying, she defiantly states her name is not Martha Ivers, but Martha Smith. Outside, Sam hears the shot. He runs back toward the mansion, but sees Walter, holding Martha's body, shoot himself. Sam and Toni drive away together.

In 1928, young heiress Martha Ivers fails to run off with friend Sam Masterson, and is involved in fatal events. Years later, Sam returns to find Martha the power behind Iverstown and married to "good boy" Walter O'Neil, now district attorney. At first, Sam is more interested in displaced blonde Toni Marachek than in his boyhood friends; but they draw him into a convoluted web of plotting and cross-purposes.

He Walked by Night

On a Los Angeles street, Officer Rawlins, a patrolman on his way home from work, stops a man he suspects of being a burglar and is shot and mortally wounded. The minor clues lead nowhere. Two police detectives, Sergeants Marty Brennan (Scott Brady) and Chuck Jones (James Cardwell), are assigned to catch the killer, Roy Morgan (Richard Basehart), a brilliant mystery man with no known criminal past, who is hiding in a Hollywood bungalow and listening to police calls on his custom radio in an attempt to avoid capture. His only relationship is with his little dog.
Roy consigns burgled electronic equipment to Paul Reeves (Whit Bissell), and on his fifth sale is nearly caught when he shows up to collect on his property. Reeves tells police that the suspect is a mystery man named Roy Martin. The case crosses the paths of Brennan and Jones, who stake out Reeves' office to arrest and question Roy. He suspects a trap, however, and in a brief shootout shoots and paralyzes Jones. Jones wounds Roy, who performs surgery on himself to remove the bullet and avoid going to a hospital, where his gunshot wound would be reported to the police. With his knowledge of police procedures, Roy changes his modus operandi and becomes an armed robber. During one robbery he fires his semi-automatic pistol, and the police recover the ejected casing. Lee (Jack Webb), a forensics specialist, matches the ejector marks on the casing to those recovered in the killing of Officer Rawlins and the wounding of Sgt. Jones, connecting all three shootings to one suspect.
Captain Breen (Roy Roberts) uses this break to gather all of the witnesses to the robberies. They assist Lee in building a composite photo of the killer. Reeves then identifies Roy from the composite. However, Roy hides in Reeves' car and attempts to intimidate him into revealing details of the police investigation. He barely eludes a stakeout of Reeves' house. Because the police do not realize that Roy has inside knowledge of their work, the case goes nowhere. Breen takes Brennan off the case in an attempt to shake him up. Jones convinces his partner to stop viewing the case personally and to use his head. Plodding, methodical follow-up by Brennan, using the composite photograph, results in information that Roy, whose actual name is Roy Morgan, worked for a local police department as a civilian radio technician before being drafted into the Army. Brennan tracks him down through post office mail carriers and disguises himself as a milkman to get a close look at Morgan and his apartment.
The police surround and raid the apartment that night, but Morgan, forewarned by the barking of his dog, escapes through the attic and uses the Los Angeles storm drainage tunnel system as a means of escape. The film continues with a dragnet and chase through the drainage tunnels. Roy is finally cornered by the police in a passage blocked by the wheel of a police car. As the police shoot tear gas at Roy, he staggers and attempts to fire at them. He is then shot down and killed.
The final scene is notable for its resemblance to the final scene in The Third Man in which Orson Welles' character is chased through the sewers of Vienna. No known connection between the films has been established.

In the Post-World War II, in Los Angeles, a criminal shots and kills a police officer in the middle of the night. Without any leads, the chief of the LAPD assigns Sgt. Chuck Jones and Sgt. Marty Brennan to investigate the murder and apprehend the culprits. When the dealer of electronics devices, Paul Reeves, is caught selling a stolen projector, the police identifies the criminal, and connects him to other unsolved robberies. Using the witnesses of his heists, they draw their face, but the true identity of the smart and intelligent criminal is not disclosed. The perseverance of Sgt. Marty Brennan in his investigation gives a clue where he might live.

Without Warning!

A quiet gardener living in Los Angeles, California picks up blond women and is murdering them with garden shears. The police attempt to track him down but the man continues to kill. The killer lives in a shack on a hill overlooking Los Angeles (Chavez Ravine).

Carl Martin is a morose and deranged Los Angeles gardener, who,in retribution for the infidelity of his unfaithful wife, sets about to kill as many blonde's as he can. From the time the film opens, to the sound of a radio turned up full-blast over the still-warm corpse of a blonde, the audience knows the identity of the killer. The film depicts, with documentary realism as it was shot on location in and around Los Angeles, how the police, using laboratory techniques against the few clues they have, track down Martin. Their key clue is a spring from a pair of garden shears. The police move in just as Martin is about to add Jane Saunders, the daughter of a greenhouse owner, to his long list of victims.

Spy Hunt

The Lone Wolf (Warren William) is determined to remain reformed for the sake of his daughter Patricia (Virginia Weidler), but a gang of foreign spies abducts Lanyard and force him to steal the blueprints for a secret anti-aircraft gun. Ever the ladies' man, Lanyard has two lovelies to contend with here: pretty heiress Val Carson (Ida Lupino) and seductive spy Karen (Rita Hayworth)

Roger Quain, who escorts two zoo-bound black panthers on the train from Milan to Paris, agrees to help a Western agent, Catherine Ullven, by hiding a microfilm in the collar of one of the animals. But, while in the Swiss Alps, the train is derailed, the panthers escape and three enemy agents hunt down the animals, Catherine and Roger. Will they escape them?

Leave Her to Heaven

Novelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) returns to his remote island home, called Back of the Moon, after two years in prison. His friend and attorney (Ray Collins), narrates how Richard meets beautiful socialite Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) on a train. She falls in love with him mainly on the basis of his close resemblance to her recently deceased father, to whom she was obsessively attached.
Ellen is previously engaged to an ambitious Boston attorney, Russell Quinton (Vincent Price), who begs her not to marry Richard because of the bad press it would bring to his upcoming political campaign. However, she jilts Russell and marries Richard, who at first is fascinated not only with Ellen's beauty but her exotic and intense manner. It gradually becomes apparent however that Ellen is pathologically jealous towards any other person and activity that her husband cares about.
Richard's younger disabled brother, Danny (Darryl Hickman), whom Richard dearly loves, comes to live with them at their lodge even though Ellen pleads with the doctor to not allow the move. She becomes increasingly irritated by Danny's presence and the attention he gets from Richard. One day, while she and Danny are out on a rowboat, Danny decides to see how far he can swim. However, Danny's paralyzed legs weigh him down, and Ellen watches heartlessly as Danny struggles to stay afloat. He drowns in front of her as Ellen registers no reaction on her face. When she hears Richard approaching the lake, she only then begins screaming.
Later, she becomes pregnant, but tells her adoptive sister, Ruth (Jeanne Crain), that she has an active disdain for the "little beast" inside of her. She then deliberately causes the miscarriage of the couple's unborn son when she throws herself down a flight of stairs. She returns after a few weeks in the hospital and accuses Ruth of being in love with Richard, especially after the dedication of Richard's new book is to "the gal with the hoe" – a reference to Ruth's penchant for gardening. Ruth rebukes Ellen for causing all the misery that is happening to the family.
Overhearing the conversation, Richard begins to suspect that Ellen is directly responsible for both the death of his brother and his son. He accuses her of letting Danny drown. When Ellen confesses that she did let him drown and would do it again, he leaves her. She decides to poison herself, coldly framing Ruth in jealousy over Ruth's warm but innocent friendship with her husband.
Posing as a victim, Ellen writes to her ex-fiance (since elected a county district attorney) laying out her claims of murder, which said that Ruth wanted her dead. Ellen conspires with Richard, who is next seen being grilled by Russell, the prosecutor for Ruth's trial. Ruth is then pressured by Russell into admitting she has always loved Richard. In response, the previous recalcitrant Richard resumes the witness chair and testifies about Ellen's insane jealousy and her dual confessions to him. Ruth is acquitted, but Richard is sentenced to two years in prison as an accessory to his brother's death for withholding knowledge of Ellen's actions from investigators.
With those two years now behind him, Richard is welcomed home to Back of the Moon by a loving embrace from Ruth.

Novelist Richard Harland and socialite Ellen Berent meet on a train to New Mexico. They are immediately attracted to each other, soon fall in love and decide to get married, about which everyone they know is happy except Ellen's fiancé back home, politician Russell Quinton. However, Richard and Ellen's love for each other is different than that of the other as Ellen demonstrates in the manner which she tells everyone of their impending marriage. Ellen's love for Richard is an obsessive, possessive one, much like the love she had for her now deceased father, who Richard physically resembles. Ellen wants Richard all to herself and resents anyone who even remotely takes a place in his life and heart, even if his love for that person is not a romantic one. These people include most specifically Richard's physically disabled teen-aged brother Danny Harland, Ellen's own adopted sister Ruth Berent, and a young man neither has gotten a chance to really know yet. After time, Richard learns to what extent Ellen will go to get what she wants, she who always wins.

Tomorrow Is Forever

The movie tells the story of Elizabeth (Colbert) and John (Welles), a married couple recently separated when John goes off to fight in World War I. When Elizabeth receives notice of John's death, she marries another man (George Brent). John, however, is still alive, and later returns, but after being disfigured in the war he has undergone plastic surgery, making him almost unrecognizable. He has also adopted an eight-year old daughter (Wood). When he finds out that he has a son with Elizabeth, he is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to reveal his true identity.

Elizabeth and John say goodbye as John leaves to go to war. When World War I ends, Elizabeth receives a telegram that John has been killed in action. She finds comfort in Larry and they marry. John returns 20 years later, disfigured, with a new identity, Erik, and an adopted daughter, Margaret. John/Erik and Elizabeth accidentally meet and he learns that he has a son, Drew. John must then decide whether or not to reveal his true identity.

Ministry of Fear

In wartime England during the Blitz, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) is released from Lembridge Asylum. While waiting for a train to London, Neale visits a village fête hosted by the Mothers of Free Nations charity. He guesses the weight of a cake for a shilling, apparently failing to guess the cake's true weight, and is urged to go to the palm reader's tent to have his fortune told by Mrs. Bellane (Aminta Dyne), an older woman. He asks her to ignore the past and tell the future, which startles her. She cryptically tells him to take another guess at the weight of the cake at 4 pounds 15½ ounces. Neale does so and wins the prize, the cake itself. Then a young blond man hurries to see Mrs. Bellane. People try to persuade Neale to give the cake to the blond man, but Neale refuses, as his initial guess was closer to the cake's true weight than the blond man's guess, by a few ounces.
Neale departs Lembridge with only a blind man (Eustace Wyatt) sharing his compartment. Neale offers him some cake. Neale sees the blind man crumbling his portion. When the train stops during a Luftwaffe air raid, Neale's companion turns out not to be blind after all. He strikes Neale with his cane, steals the cake, and flees, with Neale in pursuit. The man shoots at him, but is killed by a German bomb. Neale finds his revolver and continues on to London.
Neale hires private detective George Rennit (Erskine Sanford) to help him investigate the Mothers of Free Nations. Neale meets Willi Hilfe (Carl Esmond) and his sister Carla (Marjorie Reynolds), refugees from Nazi Austria who run the charity. Willi takes him to Mrs. Bellane's London mansion (followed by Rennit). Neale is shocked to discover that this Mrs. Bellane (Hillary Brooke) is a beautiful young medium. She invites them to stay for her séance. Among the other attendees are artist Martha Panteel (Mary Field), psychiatrist Dr. Forrester (Alan Napier), and Mr. Cost (Dan Duryea), the blond man at the fête. After the lights are dimmed, a mysterious voice claims she was poisoned by Stephen, disconcerting Neale. Then a shot rings out – Cost is found shot dead. Neale admits to having the blind man's gun. He flees with Willi's help.
Neale goes to Rennit's office, only to find it ransacked. He talks to Carla. An air raid forces the two to shelter in an Underground station, where Neale reveals that he had planned to euthanize his terminally ill wife. He changed his mind, but she committed suicide anyway, using poison he had bought. Due to the circumstances, Neale received a light sentence of two years at the asylum. He confides that he is still unsure if in buying the poison for his wife he had made the right decision.
The next morning, Carla hides Neale at a friend's bookstore. Neale spots a book by Forrester, The Psychoanalysis of Nazidom. Carla reveals that Forrester is one of her volunteers as well as a consultant for the Ministry of Home Security. Neale is convinced that Carla's organization is a front for Nazi spies. Carla finds out that almost all the people Neale suspects are charity volunteers, but all recommended by Forrester. She tells Willi about her discovery, and admits that she loves Neale.
That afternoon, Neale goes to Panteel's flat, only to find Mrs. Bellane. The two verbally spar. He flees when Panteel returns and begins screaming for the police.
Later, Carla tells Neale what she has learned. The bookseller asks the couple to deliver some books in a suitcase since they are leaving. When they arrive at the address, they discover that no one lives there. Suspicious, Neale opens the suitcase. The bomb inside explodes, but Neale's quick reaction saves them both.
Neale awakens in the hospital, the prisoner of Scotland Yard Inspector Prentice (Percy Waram). Neale persuades Prentice to search the bombed-out cottage for evidence. About to be taken to jail, at the last minute Neale finds a microfilm of military secrets inside a portion of the cake hidden in a bird's nest. Officials insist that the top secret documents have only been taken out of a safe twice, the second time when Forrester's tailor, a man named Travers, was present. Neale recalls that the empty flat was leased in Travers' name.
Prentice and Neale go to the tailor's shop, and find that Travers is Cost. Travers pretends not to recognize Neale, and calls a client about a suit. Then, seeing he is trapped, he commits suicide. When Neale dials the number he saw Travers use, Carla answers.
Neale slips away to confront Carla. Willi emerges, armed with a pistol, and admits he is the head of the spy ring. Another copy of the microfilm is sewn into the suit he received from Travers. Carla throws a candlestick, striking her brother's gun hand. The two men struggle, and Carla picks up the gun. When she refuses to hand it over to Willi, he tries to flee, but she shoots him dead. Forrester and several other Nazi agents chase Neale and Carla onto the roof. Inspector Prentice arrives and kills the remaining Nazis.
Later, Carla and Neale drive in the country, talking about their wedding. Neale is comically horrified when she mentions planning the "cake".

Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know who to turn to.

Over-Exposed

Ambitious and vivacious Lily Krenshka is new in town, and is arrested for soliciting drinks and rolling drunks. She is told by the police to take the next bus out of town. Lily asks photographer Max West not to print her arrest photo. He offers to pay her for swimsuit poses, and, never one to overlook an opportunity, she learns the art of photography from him. After awhile, she sets out for New York to start a new career, changing her name to Lila Crane at Max's suggestion.
A chance meeting with reporter Russ Bassett leads to an introduction to nightclub owner Les Bauer, who employs Lila as a 'flash girl' to take pictures at the club. A newspaper gossip-columnist, Roy Carver, surreptitiously offers to pay her $5 for candid shots of important guests. She agrees to, but negotiates a $10 price.
After Lila gets a photo of Horace Sutherland, an attorney known for his gangster clientele, together with his mistress, Lila essentially extorts him for a job at 'Club Coco', a new fancy nightclub with 'more important' patrons. After flattering high-society maven Mrs. Payton Grange, a former client of West, with a good rare photo, Lila's exclusive makes a name for herself as a photographer. She quickly becomes well-known and well-paid, acquiring her own clients and contracts, and resisting Russ's offer to get her a steady, respectable job with his news-agency employer. She's so busy, she brings in Max to be her assistant. She and Russ develop a relationship, but he's not happy about her drive for fame and money, seemingly at all costs.
Things begin go downhill. Russ plans to leave for Europe, after she rejects his proposal of marriage. Then, one evening Ms. Grange dies on the dance floor at 'Club Coco', and a picture Lila managed to take of her, collapsing, is stolen by Carver and published, sullying Lila with her club boss, who fires her, West, and most of her other clients.
Lila, desperate, then shows Sutherland an incriminating photo she had earlier accidentally taken of his boss and a rival crime boss one evening at the club, who was murdered later that night. She offers to sell it to Sutherland for $25,000. She ends up kidnapped and held captive in a warehouse, with Russ her one and only chance for a rescue and a fresh start.

Sexy blonde dance club girl learns the photography trade and moves to New York in pursuit of a new career.

The 13th Letter

Doctor Pearson (Michael Rennie), who works at a Canadian hospital in the province of Quebec, receives a series of poison pen letters. More letters, all signed with the mysterious picture of a feather, are delivered to others in the small Canadian town. Cora Laurent (Constance Smith), the wife of the main doctor - Dr. Laurent (Charles Boyer) - at the hospital, receives a letter accusing her of having an affair with Pearson. Another letter informs a shell-shocked veteran Mr. Gauthier that he is dying of cancer, causing the distraught man to commit suicide. Quickly, the townsfolk begin pointing fingers at all possible suspects.

Respectable citizens receive anonymous letters revealing their adulterous relationships.

The House on Telegraph Hill

Polish woman Viktoria Kowalska (Valentina Cortese) has lost her home and her husband in the German occupation of Poland, and has been imprisoned in the concentration camp at Belsen. She befriends another prisoner, Karin Dernakova (Natasha Lytess), who dreams of reuniting with her young son Christopher (Gordon Gebert), who was sent to live in San Francisco with a wealthy Aunt. Karin dies shortly before the camp can be liberated, and Viktoria, seeing a way to a better life, uses Karin's papers to assume her identity. After the camp is liberated, she is interviewed by Major Marc Bennett (William Lundigan), who gets her a place in a camp for persons displaced by the war. She writes to Karin's Aunt Sophia in San Francisco, but receives a cable from Sophia's lawyers that she has died.
Four years later, Viktoria (still going by the name of Karin) is able to travel to New York, where she meets with Christopher's guardian Alan Spender (Richard Basehart), a distant relative of Sophia's. "Karin" intends to gain custody of "her" son, but it becomes clear that Sophia has left her fortune to Christopher when he comes of age. When she realizes that Alan is attracted to her, she realizes that it will be easier to stay in America if she has an American husband. She allows him to romance her, and they soon marry. Alan takes Karin to San Francisco where Christopher meets his "mother" for the first time, and she settles into Sophia's Italianate mansion on Telegraph Hill, where Christopher has lived with Alan and his governess, Margaret (Fay Baker).
Things seem idyllic at first, but tensions begin to mount between Karin and Margaret, who has not only raised Christopher but is also in love with Alan, and resents Karin for intruding on her life. Karin is also alarmed at the presence of a burnt-out, dangerously damaged playhouse overlooking the hill, which Christopher claims to have damaged with an explosion from his toy chemistry set. He and Margaret beg her not to tell Alan, since Margaret never has, but Karin is perplexed to discover that he already knows about it. Karin is pleased, however, to meet Marc Bennett again, learning he is an old schoolmate of her husband's and is a partner for the law firm that handles Sophia's affairs. He is clearly attracted to Karin, but keeps a respectable distance.
Karin investigates the playhouse, but is surprised by Alan while she is in there and nearly falls to her death through a hole in the floor. Alan pulls her up, but appears to be alarmed by her behavior. Soon after, the brakes on Karin's car fail. She escapes unharmed but suspects Margaret of tampering with the car. When she realizes Christopher was supposed to have been in the car with her, Karin comes to believe that Alan is behind the accident, since if Christopher dies Alan will inherit Sophia's money. With Marc's help she begins to investigate, learning that Marc's law firm, which supposedly sent her the cable regarding Sophia's death, has no record of the cable being sent. She also grows significantly more nervous around Alan.
Karin discovers a newspaper clipping in Margaret's scrapbook confirming that the cable was sent three days before Sophia's death: it is a fake, and Alan killed Sophia. She attempts to call Marc but is prevented from doing so when Alan arrives home, and he does not let her out of his sight for the rest of the evening. When he brings in the orange juice that the pair drink every night before bed, she is sure her glass has been poisoned. When he briefly leaves the room, she attempts to call the police, but Alan left the phone off the hook in another room, and calls cannot be made. He returns to the bedroom and coerces her into drinking the orange juice, after which he drinks his own. Thinking himself safe, he confesses to Sophia's murder, and that he has given her an overdose of sedatives in her orange juice. Karin tells him she has switched the glasses and that he has poisoned himself. She tries to telephone a doctor but can't get through. Margaret is awakened by the commotion, and Alan begs her to call a doctor. Realizing that he has tried to kill Christopher as well as Sophia and Karin, she refuses, and Alan dies.
Margaret is arrested for refusing to aid Alan, and it is indicated that she may be charged with his murder. Karin, who has confessed her true identity to Marc, leaves the house with him and Christopher to begin a new life.

Victoria has survived Nazi concentration by assuming the identity of one who died there. She arrives in San Francisco to see her "son" just as the boy's great-aunt dies leaving a lot of money to be inherited. Victoria falls in love with the boy's trustee Alan Spender, and they move into the mansion on Telegraph Hill. Living life in a new identity isn't without its dangers, however.

Step Down to Terror

Johnny Williams (Drake), a psychotic serial killer who returns to his hometown to visit his mother (Hutchinson) and widowed sister-in-law Helen (Miller), both of whom are ignorant of his criminal past. Johnny hopes to settle down and start life anew, but Helen, her suspicions aroused by visiting detective Mike Randall (Taylor), discovers the truth about her beloved brother-in-law. Failing to talk Helen out of turning him in, Johnny methodically plots her murder. When all his plans fail he drags Helen into his car and drives off with her. Knowing Johnny is going to kill her, Helen grabs the keys, and he is forced to swerve to avoid hitting a boy riding his bike, and is killed in the resulting accident. At the memorial service, as Johnny is lauded as a model citizen, only Helen and Mike know the real truth.

Pursued by detectives, Johnny Walters leaves the city to visit his family in a small California town. Among the household: his dead brother's luscious widow Helen, who soon is attracted to him. Ominous events and conflicting evidence leave Helen suspicious, but uncertain about her brother-in-law as tension builds...

The Raging Tide

The film tells of Bruno Felkin (Conte) as a San Francisco crime boss. After he kills off a mob rival, he tries to arrange an alibi with his girlfriend Connie Thatcher (Winters). However, she isn't available, which forces Felkin to hide out on a fishing boat owned by Hamil Linder (Bickford) until Connie his moll can be located.
Far from the perfect guest, Felkin tries to motivate Linder's son Carl (Alex Nicol) into doing his dirty work until the police is of his trail. Gradually, however, Felkin, and Connie, become reformed by the decency and humanity of the Linder family.
Cop Kelsey (Stephen McNally) continues to pursue Felkin and might not see things in this new light.

A San Francisco hood is rubbed out by rival Bruno Felkin, who himself reports the crime to Homicide Lieut. Kelsey in an alibi scheme which fails. To escape, he stows away on a fishing boat....

Gun Crazy

At the age of 14, Bart Tare robs a hardware store and steals a gun. He is sent to reform school by a sympathetic Judge Willoughby (Morris Carnovsky), despite the testimony of his friends Dave and Clyde, his older sister Ruby and others that he would never kill any living creature, even though he has had a fascination with guns even as a child. Flashbacks provide a portrait of Bart who, after he kills a young chick with a BB gun at age seven, is hesitant to harm anyone with guns even though he is a good shot with a pistol.
After reform school and a stint in the Army teaching marksmanship, Bart (John Dall) returns home. He, Dave (Nedrick Young) and Clyde (Harry Lewis) go to a traveling carnival in town. Bart challenges sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) to a contest and wins. She gets him a job with the carnival, and he becomes smitten with her. Their attraction inflames the jealousy of their boss, Packett (Berry Kroeger), who wants Laurie for himself. As Packett tries to force himself on her, Bart enters and shoots a mirror. Laurie and Bart get fired and leave together.
The couple get married and embark on a happy honeymoon. She warns him beforehand that she is "bad, but will try to be good". When their money runs out, though, Laurie gives Bart a stark choice: join her in a career of crime or she will leave him. They hold up stores and gas stations, but the money does not last long. While fleeing a police car, Laurie tells Bart to shoot at the policeman driving so they can escape, but he hesitates and becomes somewhat disoriented. Ultimately, he shoots the tire out and the couple escapes. Later that day, Laurie intends to shoot and kill a grocer they had just robbed, but Bart prevents her from doing so. The couple have now been identified in national newspapers as robbers and murderers.
Bart says he is done with a life of crime. Laurie persuades him to take on one last big robbery so they can flee the country and live in peace and comfort. They get jobs at a meat processing plant and make detailed plans. When they hold up the payroll office, a secretary pulls the burglar alarm and Laurie shoots her dead. From the car, Laurie kills a security guard as well. The two are supposed to split up for a couple of months and have separate getaway cars to minimize the chances of both being caught, but neither can bear to be away from the other. The FBI is brought in, and the fugitives become the targets of an intense manhunt, yet they evade a statewide dragnet and escape to California.
Bart arranges for passage to Mexico, but the FBI tracks them to a dance hall by using the serial numbers of bills from the meat plant. They are forced to flee, leaving all their loot behind. With roadblocks everywhere, they jump on a train and get off near his sister Ruby's house. Bart's old friend, now the local sheriff, notices that Ruby's house has the curtains drawn and the children are not in school. He informs Bart's other old friend, now a news reporter, and the two plead with Bart to give himself and Laurie up. Instead, the couple flee into the mountains where Bart used to go camping. Pursued by police dogs, they are surrounded in reed grass the next morning. In dense fog, Dave and Clyde approach to try to save their lives. As soon as Bart sees Laurie preparing to gun them down, he shoots her and is in turn killed by the police.

Since he was a child, Bart Tare has always loved guns. After leaving the army, his friends take him to a carnival, where he meets the perfect girl; Annie, a sharp-shooting sideshow performer who loves guns as much as he. The 2 run off and marry, but Annie isn't happy with their financial situation, so at her behest the couple begins a cross-country string of daring robberies. Never one to use guns for killing, Bart's dragged down into oblivion by the greedy and violent nature of the woman he loves.

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

Bill Saunders (Lancaster) is a former prisoner of war now living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent. He gets into a bar fight in which he kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine), who believes his story that the killing was an accident.
Saunders is involved in another fight—this time with a police officer. He ends up behind bars, but Jane, who is now in love with Saunders, gets him a job driving a truck delivering drugs for her medical clinic when he's released.
Meanwhile, hoodlum Harry Carter, who witnessed the earlier bar fight, threatens to expose Saunders to the police. In return for his silence, Carter demands that Saunders cooperate with a planned robbery of his next drug shipment.
When Saunders does do the delivery, Jane rides with him, forcing Saunders to make the delivery as planned to avoid getting Jane involved in the possibly dangerous theft. This betrayal of Carter puts the lives of Saunders and Jane in even greater danger.

Bill Saunders, disturbed ex-soldier, kills a man in a postwar London pub brawl. Fleeing, he hides out in the apartment of lonely nurse Jane Wharton. Later, despite misgivings about his violent nature, Jane becomes involved with Bill, who resolves to reform. She gets him a job driving a medical supplies truck. But racketeer Harry Carter, who witnessed the killing, wants to use Bill's talents for crime.

They Made Me a Fugitive

Clem Morgan, demobilised from the Royal Air Force and unemployed after the war, is drawn into the world of crime. His psychopathic crime boss Narcy (short for Narcissus) deals in the black market, transporting goods in coffins to his headquarters in a funeral parlour. Clem finds the activity harmless enough, until one day he finds drugs in the latest coffin. Clem objects and tells his girlfriend, Ellie, that he will quit after one last job that night, the looting of a warehouse. Narcy betrays him, triggering the burglar alarm while he is inside. Clem manages to get back in the car with Narcy and another member of the gang, Soapy, before they drive off. When Narcy orders Soapy to run down a policeman, Clem grabs the wheel in an unsuccessful attempt to save the man's life and the car crashes into a lamppost. Narcy knocks him unconscious and has him moved to the driver's seat before fleeing with Soapy. Inspector Rockliffe arrives on the scene with other police officers to find the police officer dead and Clem injured in the car.
Clem is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to fifteen years in prison in Dartmooor. Sally Connor, Narcy's girlfriend, visits him in prison, telling him that Narcy is now with Ellie (who has not visited Morgan in prison) and that she knows he was framed as she was told so by Cora, Soapy's girlfriend. Sally offers to try and persuade Soapy to give evidence but Clem tells her to go away.
Back in London, Sally tells Cora that she has seen Clem and wants to go and speak to Soapy to get him to tell the police what really happened, but Narcy has found out that Sally has gone to see Clem in prison and brutally beats her up.
Clem escapes from prison and the police start a manhunt for him. He seeks shelter in a remote farmhouse, where Mrs. Fenshaw lets him bath, shave and change his clothes, and also cooks him some food. Mr. Fenshaw comes into the room, but turns out to be a hopeless drunk who is hardly aware of his surroundings. Mrs.Fenshaw then tries to get Clem to shoot her husband, stating that as he is already a murderer it won't make any difference to him. Clem refuses and leaves, but he has handled the gun, leaving his fingerprints on it, and Mrs. Fenshaw uses it to shoot her husband dead.
Clem is now wanted for the murder of Mr. Fenshaw as well, but maks his way back to London and goes to stay with Sally; he then manages to escape both the police and Narcy, but Sally is kidnapped by Narcy and his gang and taken to their hideout, where Cora is already being held. Cora is forced to tell Narcy where Soapy is hiding out (in a room in a rundown hotel nearby) and Narcy sends Jim to go and kill Soapy, which he does.
Clem, whilst trying to find Cora and Soapy, is caught by Rockliffe, who tells him that he is not convinced by Mrs. Fenshaw's story, the first indication that the police might believe in Clem's innocence. In order to use him as bait, Rockliffe lets Clem go, and he goes to the Valhalla funeral parlour to meet with Narcy's gang. After knocking other members of the gang out, Clem and Narcy end up fighting on the roof of the parlour, before Narcy falls to the ground. Rockliffe, Sally and Clem gather round, begging Narcy, who is dying, to tell the truth about who killed the policeman but Narcy sticks to his story and repeats that it was Clem, before dying. Rockliffe leads Clem away, whilst Sally promises to wait for him. The ending is rather ambiguous, as Clem presumably has to return to prison, and he is also facing a possible murder charge; all that Rockliffe can do is promise to look at any new evidence that comes up.

Appointment with a Shadow

An alcoholic, Paul Baxter has ruined his career as a reporter. After passing out in Pat O'Connell's bar, he is taken home by his friend, police lieutenant Spencer, to his sister Penny, who is romantically involved with Spence.
Penny has a tip on a story that could change her brother's life, but will reveal it only on the condition that Paul can go 24 hours without drinking. Hungover and shaking, Paul tries.
He needs to be sober and alert at 7 p.m. when a fugitive criminal, Dutch Hayden, is supposed to show up at a restaurant. Spence has information that Hayden has undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance and is about to leave the country.
Paul makes it on time, but in rocky shape. An accident causes his clothing to be soaked in liquor. Hayden arrives with his stripper girlfriend, Flo Knapp, but just as Spencer's men shoot him dead, Paul spots the real Hayden, whose face has not been changed at all. It's a set-up.
Every attempt made by Paul to persuade Spencer and Penny of the mistake goes for naught because they are certain that he was drunk. When he sets about proving Hayden is alive, Flo takes him captive at gunpoint. Only in the end does Spence realize that Paul was right all along.

N/A

Beware, My Lovely

The film is set in 1918 in an unnamed small town. A widow (Lupino) impulsively hires handyman (Ryan) to look after her house. She soon learns Ryan is a dangerous schizophrenic, but by the time she comes to this realization she is unable to leave her house and escape from him.

Helen Gordon hires Howard Wilton as a handyman to do chores around her house. She doesn't know what she's let herself in for. Insecure and paranoid, Wilton thinks everyone, including Helen, is against him. He suffers from memory lapses and extreme mood swings. She's soon a prisoner in her own house after Wilton locks the doors and tears out the telephone. His mood swings from violence to complacency but after Helen gets a message to the police via a telephone repairman, she finds he is still in the house.

The Crooked Way

After sustaining a head wound in combat, decorated World War II veteran Eddie Rice (John Payne) is treated at a San Francisco military hospital for a permanent form of amnesia. This leaves him with no knowledge of his life, family and friends prior to his enlistment, a void that the army intelligence unit was unable to fill as they couldn't find any information about him, other than the fact he enlisted in Los Angeles. Doctors tell him that no medical cure exists for his case, but that if he returns to Los Angeles he might run into people who know him and could help him fill in the blanks. Rice follows this advice and he promptly runs into people who recognize him. However, he is recognized not as Eddie Rice, but as Eddie Riccardi, a dangerous gangster gone missing, whose past behavior generates mistrust among the police and all those who knew him in the past. Furthermore, ruthless crime boss Vince Alexander (Sonny Tufts), who was betrayed by Eddie before he left the town, is now out for revenge.

A World War II veteran, suffering from amnesia but otherwise healthy, is released from a veteran's hospital, decides to return to Los Angeles to see if he can regain his identity. Trying to retrace his former steps he soon learns that he was a double-crossing gangster, and many people have reasons to wish he wasn't around...and some try to see to it that he isn't around very long...alive, at least.

Hunt the Man Down

Public defender Paul Bennett (Gig Young) dedicates himself to defending a destitute man accused of murder. Some-time piano player Richard Kincaid (James Anderson) was brought to trial for the crime 12 years earlier, but he was sure he would be found guilty and escaped before the jury reached a verdict. Now recaptured, he is due to be put on trial again. Bennett is faced with the task of tracking down the seven witnesses to a fight that Kincaid had with the murder victim before the crime. In the years since the first trial, World War II has come and gone and the lives of the witnesses have undergone major changes, most of them for the worse.

Dishwasher 'Bill Jackson' thwarts a robbery; resulting publicity fingers him as the 12-years-missing Richard Kinkaid, wanted for murder. Kinkaid half-convinces public defender Paul Bennett of his innocence; but Paul knows he'll never convince a jury without the 7 witnesses who've had 12 years to vanish. It develops that these prosperous young folks have gone down in the world. Paul and his father, a one-armed ex-cop, have a week to find them...

The Secret Fury

A wealthy classical pianist, Ellen, is accused of already being married when she attempts to take her wedding vows; the wedding guests are shocked. They temporarily call off the wedding and the couple tries to investigate why someone would accuse her of already being married.
With the help of a lawyer and the district attorney, the couple tracks down and questions the justice of the peace that signed her wedding papers. Even he recognizes her as the woman he married. Frustrated, the couple next visits the man to whom Ellen is accused of being married. In a back room a gunshot fires and Ellen is accused of killing the man. She breaks down after a lengthy trial, is eventually found not guilty due to insanity, and is sent to a mental institution. Meanwhile, her fiance David, still believing her innocence, begins to find clues that may help free her.

During the ceremony marrying Ellen and David, a stranger stands up when that phrase "if anyone knows why these two may not be joined..." is spoken. The stranger announces that Ellen is already married. Ellen however insists she is not, and the strain of proving she is telling the truth pushes her mind towards a breakdown and results in the death of the man she has supposedly already married (among others.) Ellen is charged with this death. But David believes in her innocence and sets out to uncover the conspiracy and the reason behind it.

Riot in Cell Block 11

One night, several prison inmates take guards prisoner to protest brutal conditions in their prison. They then make their demands known to prison warden Reynolds (Emile Meyer), a liberal-minded administrator who has complained for many years about the same conditions. James V. Dunn (Neville Brand), the prisoners' leader, meets the press outside the cell block and makes demands that they will no longer tolerate the brutal guards, substandard food, overcrowding, and barely livable conditions.
The next day inmates from two other blocks start a riot but they are forced back into the cell blocks by the state police. Negotiations between the inmates and prison officials are stymied by the state politicians who do not want to make any concessions.
Meanwhile, factions within the prisoners begin to vie for power and control within the rebellious cell block. At the same time, the state police are given the go ahead to blow a hole in the wall to end the siege. But unknown to them, the inmates inside create a human shield by tying the hostages to the interior wall.
Just in the nick of time, the governor agrees to sign a petition from the prisoners. The riot ends when the inmates see the next-day newspapers saying that they had won. But it is a pyrrhic victory for the leader, Dunn. Two weeks later he is called to the warden's office. The state legislature had overturned the governor's signature thus repudiating all the prisoners' demands.
The Warden tells Dunn that he will stand trial for leading the riot and taking hostages, charges that will mostly likely mean an additional 30-year sentence. But the Warden, who explains that he is to be replaced, tells Dunn that he did get a small victory: the mentally-ill inmates are to be moved to asylums and some prisoners will be paroled. The Warden tells Dunn that his actions were front-page news which may bring about some good.

Producer Walter Wanger, who had just been released from a prison term after shooting a man he believed was having an affair with his wife, wanted to make a film about the appalling conditions he saw while he was incarcerated. He got together with director Don Siegel and they came up with this film, in which several prison inmates, to protest brutal guards, substandard food, overcrowding and barely livable conditions, stage an uprising, in which most of the inmates join, and take several guards hostage. Negotiations between the inmates and prison officials are stymied, however, by politicians interfering with the prison administration, and by dissension and infighting in the inmates' own ranks.

I Wake Up Screaming

A young promoter, Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature), is accused of the murder of Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis), a young actress he "discovered" as a waitress while out with ex-actor Robin Ray (Alan Mowbray) and gossip columnist Larry Evans (Allyn Joslyn).
Frankie hides out with Vicky's sister, Jill (Betty Grable), with whom he is falling in love, but is eventually captured and interrogated by the cops. An obsessive police officer, Cornell (Laird Cregar), knows that Frankie is innocent but because the evidence is completely incriminating, he tries to put the suspect behind bars anyway. Frankie escapes and eventually finds the murderer's true identity.

Promoter Frankie Christopher, being grilled by police in the murder of model Vicky Lynn, recalls in flashback: First meeting her as a waitress, Frankie decides to parlay her beauty into social acceptance and a lucrative career. He succeeds only too well: she's on the eve of deserting him for Hollywood...when someone kills her. Now Frankie gets the feeling that Inspector Ed Cornell is determined to pin the killing on him and only him. He's right. And the only one he can turn to for help is Jill, the victim's sister, who's been cool toward him...

The Street with No Name

The opening credits include the following foreword:

After two gang-related killings in "Center City," a suspect (who was framed) is arrested, released on bail...and murdered. Inspector Briggs of the FBI recruits a young agent, Gene Cordell, to go undercover in the shadowy Skid Row area (alias George Manly) as a potential victim of the same racket. Soon, Gene meets Alec Stiles, neurotic mastermind who's "building an organization along scientific lines." Stiles recruits Cordell, whose job becomes a lot more dangerous...

Female Jungle

A cop (Tierney) is suspected of killing a gorgeous film star. Since he was extremely drunk at the time, even he suspects that he did it.
The investigation leads him to Candy, an artist's mistress (Mansfield), as well as to a slimy Laura-type gossip columnist (John Carradine) who spent time with the woman that night and becomes the main suspect. But he also becomes a red herring when a third man is finally found to be the real killer.

A blonde actress is murdered across from a bar. An off-duty cop has been getting pleasantly sloshed, but becomes worried about his innocence when he finds out he was seen leaving the establishment with a blonde, but doesn't remember. As he investigates, he interviews a columnist who was going with the actress, a caricaturist who drew the victim, the caricaturist's wife who works at the bar, and the caricaturist's lover, and slowly begins to put the pieces of the deadly puzzle together.

They Live by Night

Bowie (Granger) escapes from prison with bank robbers Chicamaw (DaSilva) and T-Dub (Flippen). Bowie was unfairly convicted of murder. The three plan to rob a bank. Bowie needs the money to hire a lawyer to prove he is innocent. Bowie, injured in an auto accident, finds refuge with the daughter of the owner of a gas station, Keechie (O'Donnell). They fall in love with each other, flee and plan to live an honest life.
On the run, they get married and Keechie gets pregnant. But then Chicamaw and T-Dub return and demand that Bowie come with them for one more job. Bowie is forced to accept but the heist gone wrong: T-Dub ends up dead and Bowie, after a violent argument in the getaway car, leaves Chicamaw stranded. Bowie soon finds that he is unable to escape being hunted by the law and meets a tragic end.

In the '40s, three prisoners flee from a state prison farm in Mississippi. Among them is 23-years-young Bowie, who spent the last seven years in prison and now hopes to be able to prove his innocence or retire to a home in the mountains and live in peace together with his new love, Keechie. But his criminal companions persuade him to participate in several heists, and soon the police believe him to be their leader and go after "Bowie the Kid" harder than ever.

The Damned Don't Cry!

Ethel Whitehead (Crawford) is a weary housewife living at the edge of the Texas oil fields. When her young son is killed in a bicycle accident, she leaves her laborer husband Roy (Egan) for the big city. She quickly learns to use her physical charms to get ahead. In cahoots with bookkeeper friend Martin Blackford (Smith), Ethel works her way into the entourage of George Castleman (Brian), a mobster who enjoys an elegant lifestyle. With the help of socialite Patricia Longworth (Royle), Castleman grooms Ethel in the arts of cultured living. After making her his mistress, he tries to use her to trap his arch-rival Nick Prenta (Cochran). The trap fails when Ethel falls in love with Prenta. The betrayed Castleman kills Prenta and goes gunning for Ethel but dies in a shootout with Blackford.

The murder of gangster Nick Prenta touches off an investigation of mysterious socialite Lorna Hansen Forbes, who seems to have no past, and has now disappeared. In flashback, we see the woman's anonymous roots; her poor working-class marriage, which ends in tragedy and her determination to find "better things." Soon finding that sex appeal is her only salable commodity, she climbs from man to man toward the center of a nationwide crime syndicate...a very perilous position.

The Sleeping City

An intern is shot mysteriously on an East River pier adjoining Bellevue Hospital. The chief investigating detective views this as a difficult case, so with the cooperation of the Commissioner of Hospitals he assigns a detective who had been a medical corpsman, Fred Rowan of the Confidential Squad, to go undercover as intern "Fred Gilbert."
Rowan becomes involved with the attractive nurse Ann Sebastian (Coleen Gray), and also becomes friendly with the popular elevator operator, Pop Ware (Richard Taber).
Ware, who works part-time taking bets, seems initially to be a benign character. But it becomes apparent that Ware has been loaning money to the interns, including the slain intern and another intern, Rowan's roommate Steve Anderson (Alex Nicol), who is depressed and commits suicide.
Rowan deliberately loses money betting with Ware, and Ware says that Rowan can pay off his bet by stealing "white stuff"—narcotics. Rowan plays along, encouraged by Ann Sebastian. He stops providing drugs to Ware. Ware tries to kill Rowan, and is shot in a shootout on the roof of the hospital.
Investigators find that the nurse worked as a courier for Ware. The movie ends with Rowan, turning aside pleas from Ann, placing her under arrest.

At Bellvue Hospital, New York, an intern is shot in the head by an unknown killer. Inspector Gordon of the 9th Precinct finds no obvious leads but senses an undercurrent of mystery at the hospital; enter Detective Fred Rowan, whose medical background enables him to pose as an intern. Through wheels within wheels, Rowan finally penetrates to a secret, dirty racket...and nurse Ann Sebastian, whom he's been dating, may be mixed up in it.

Gunman in the Streets

American army deserter turned criminal on the run Eddy Roback is being chased through the streets of Paris. The fugitive finds his old girlfriend, Denise Vernon (Signoret) and tries to get money from her in an attempt to get across the border to Belgium. The girlfriend's friend, an American crime reporter (Duke), as well as a country-wide manhunt become obstacles Roback must get past in order to escape. While trying to raise him money, Denise finds him a hiding place in the studio of a lecherous photographer Max Salva, who may have turned Roback in.

American army deserter turned criminal-on-the-run Eddy Roback must evade the French authorities in a nation-wide manhunt as he attempts to cross the border into Belgium.

The Crooked Web

Stan Fabian runs a drive-in restaurant with girlfriend Joanie Daniel, whose brother Frank turns up for a visit. Joanie has declined to marry Stan because he's strapped for cash, but Frank tempts him with a proposition, mentioning that he and a partner hid a stash of gold in Germany during the war.
Stan accepts an offer to help recover the gold for a cut of the loot. What he doesn't know is that Joanie and Frank are actually undercover cops. A rich businessman's son was apparently killed by Stan during a deal gone wrong, but the German police are unable to extradite him to charge him with a crime.
Frank pretends to shoot his partner, using blanks. He secretly meets with Berlin chief of police Koenig, pretending to be looking for the gold. Stan fears a double-cross, but confesses his wartime murder to Joanie, and is shocked to be placed under arrest.

Cafe owner Stan Fabian joins Joanie Daniel and her "brother" Frank in a scheme to unearth a "fortune in stolen gold buried by Frank" in Germany during World War II, and Stan is unaware that Joanie and Frank are undercover agents trying to get a confession from Stan of a murder he committed in Germany. Joanie plays on Stan's love for her, insisting he join the Army and so gain access to the supposed hidden treasure , buried in what is now a U.S. Army reservation. Entrapment is the word used now.

A Woman's Secret

In a story told in a series of flashbacks, singer Marian Washburn (O'Hara) loses her voice. Aided by her pianist, Luke Jordan (Douglas), they promote a young singer, Susan Caldwell (Grahame). When Susan decides to quit the business, she is shot and seriously wounded in the Park Avenue apartment in New York that she and Marian share. When the police arrive, Marian confesses.
Luke believes there must be more to this. He hires attorney Brook Matthews, (Victor Jory) who has a past relationship with Susan, and explains at length to Fowler, a police inspector, (Jay C. Flippen) how he and Marian came to know Susan.
After an audition, Susan, an aspiring singer from Azusa, California, collapsed from starvation in front of them. Luke and Marian took her home and heard her voice. They decided to promote Susan's career, taking her to France, where as a performer she became known as "Estrellita," but, behind their backs, briefly ran off with a soldier to Algiers.
In the present, as Susan fights for her life in a hospital trying to survive the gunshot, the former soldier, Lee Crenshaw (Bill Williams), gets into a verbal confrontation with Luke while admitting that he had given her a Luger pistol from the war as a gift.
Luke relates to Fowler and the inspector's amateur-sleuth wife, Mary, (Mary Philips) how on a boat home from France, they encountered Brook, the influential lawyer, just as they hoped they might. Brook had been known to sponsor young talent and, before long, he became Susan's patron, with a personal relationship also developing between them.
When she comes to in the hospital, a delirious Susan confirms the story Marian has told, that she was shot by Marian after their quarrel. Mary points out to her detective husband that Susan had just finished reading a newspaper account of the crime and could have been influenced by that.
A piece of key evidence leads to the truth, that Susan possessed the gun and, when Marian became concerned that Susan might be contemplating suicide, they struggled over the weapon and it went off. Charges are dismissed and Marian returns to Luke.

Susan is in the hospital with a bullet near her heart. Marian has told the police that she shot Susan in a rage as Susan was giving up singing. Marian and Luke found Susan when she was a failure. A singer with a limited range, she was a diamond in the rough which Marian and Luke taught how to walk, dress and talk. With the singing lessons, Marian had hoped that she would have the career that Marian would have had if she had not lost her voice. Even though Susan is a scatterbrain girl, Luke does not believe that Marian would have been capable of shooting her. Luke hopes that Detective Fowler will be able to find out the truth and free Marian.

The Woman on the Beach

Scott (Robert Ryan), a mounted Coast Guard officer, suffers from recurring nightmares involving a maritime tragedy. He sees himself immersed in an eerie landscape surrounded by a shipwreck and walking over skeletons at the bottom of the sea while a ghostly blond woman beckons him from afar. He thinks he is going mad. But at the same time, he decides to propose to Eve (Nan Leslie), a young woman working at Geddes, a local shipyard catering to the Coast Guard. She accepts. Eve has a strong resemblance to the ghostly blond of his nightmares.
While riding by the seaside on his horse, Scott meets Peggy (Joan Bennett), a brunette, the mysterious wife of Tod (Charles Bickford), a blind painter. At first, though, he rides by her as she stands near a shipwreck protruding from the sand; she seems like an eerie echo from his nightmares. After a conversation, they discover that they share similar metaphysical anxieties. A bond develops between the two but the situation gets more tangled when Tod tries to befriend Scott. Tod's attitude toward Scott, apart from his friendship, is also ambivalent. The retired painter tries to test Peggy and Scott to gauge how far they could go in their relationship. Outwardly Tod seems confident; he even tells Peggy that he knows she could never leave him and that he finds Scott, a much younger man, virile but banal.
However behind this facade lies a deeply wounded man who cannot come to terms with the fact that because of his blindness, he cannot paint any longer. In one exchange with Scott he tells him that dead painters' works always appreciate in value. Indeed, he expects the value of his paintings to increase, considering he is now 'dead' as a painter.
Initially Scott is suspicious of Tod's motives; he also suspects that Tod is not blind. Scott is also increasingly interested in Peggy, who returns his attentions. During an outing that Scott sets up to test the painter, he moves Tod near the edge of a cliff, but then inadvertently lets him fall, thinking that he will be forced to see and therefore avoid the fall at the last minute. After this mishap, Tod eventually recovers. He at first thinks that Scott would now become his friend since the fall would remove any doubts about his true blindness. But soon after Tod exhibits abusive behavior toward Peggy when he realizes that she has hidden his masterpiece, his portrait of her. Seeing this, Scott tries to protect her.
As Scott grows more attracted to Peggy, he becomes ambivalent toward his earlier relationship with Eve Geddes. Eve in turn, sensing Scott's infatuation with Peggy, becomes distant and asks Scott to delay their marriage plans. The narrative reaches one climax when Scott attempts to drown both Tod and himself during a boat outing with him that started as a fishing trip. By trying to pierce the bottom of the boat, it's apparent that Scott has put himself in danger as well, since he would be swimming helpless in the stormy seas had he been successful at this attempt. This scene illustrates the degree of his desperation, if not madness.
This attempt by Scott to drown Tod reveals the depth of his emotional attachment to Peggy. Scott's plan fails, however, because Peggy, who seemingly went along with his plan, has a change of heart and alerts the authorities. Both Tod and Scott are eventually rescued by the Coast Guard. Eve, part of the rescue team, echoes the metaphysical connection to the blonde of his undersea nightmare who beckoned Scott in his dreams.
In the film's finale, Tod burns all his paintings along with the house he and Peggy lived in. Peggy frantically tries to stop Tod and save the paintings: they are worth a fortune. She fails, as Scott forces her out of the collapsing house. After they have moved safely away, Scott asks Tod why he did it. Tod says the paintings were a symbol of the obsession he had with his previous, sighted life. Now that Tod's obsession with his past has been purged, he is free to go on with his life. He asks Peggy to take him to New York, where they have happy memories of their earlier life together. Afterwards she may "do as she pleases". Peggy embraces Tod. Observing this, Scott leaves them.

Scott, a troubled Coast Guardsman assigned to a fog-bound station on a remote stretch of beach, suffers from Post Traumatic Stress when he survives a mine explosion that sinks his ship. Although he is engaged to a beautiful young woman who loves him, he becomes involved with an enigmatic femme fatale whom he meets near the beached wreckage of a torpedoed ship. She is married to a renowned painter who was blinded in a traumatic, but mysterious incident, details of which are very hazy. Although they only live in a small cottage, the couple have an ambivalent relationship especially in regards to his priceless cache of unsold paintings, a relationship that evolves into a romantic triangle as Scott falls under her seductive spell.

Nightmare Alley

Stanton Carlisle watches the geek show at a Ten-in-One where he has recently begun working. He later asks the carnival's talker Clem Hoately where geeks come from. Clem explains that geeks are "made": a sideshow owner finds an alcoholic bum and offers him a temporary job with a steady supply of liquor. Initially, the bum is only asked to pretend to be a geek, using a razor blade to slice chickens' necks and then faking the drinking of the blood. After a few weeks, the owner threatens to end the job and replace the bum with a "real" geek, and the fear of sobering up terrifies the bum into actually biting the chickens. Thus, a geek is made.
Stan performs sleight of hand tricks in the sideshow but studies under the carnival's mentalist Zeena to learn a refined "code" act, where performers memorize verbal cues that allow them to appear psychic by accurately answering written audience questions. Stan also begins to pick up Zeena's talent for cold reading. He eventually leaves the carnival with beautiful and naïve electric girl, Molly Cahill to perform a team code act.
Their act becomes very successful, but Stan grows bored and transforms himself into Reverend Carlisle, an upstanding Spiritualist preacher offering séance sessions with the help of his medium (Molly, appearing as "Miss Cahill" to obfuscate their relationship). Stan gains a devoted following, but the stress of leading a false life leads him to seek the help of psychologist named Lilith Ritter, who seduces and then begins controlling him. Stan pleads constantly for them to go away together, and Lilith eventually agrees, suggesting the Rev. Carlisle swindle a rich man for the getaway money. They settle on Ezra Grindle, a ruthless auto tycoon with a skeptical interest in the occult. Stan manages to convince Grindle of his powers, and the businessman becomes a devoted spiritualist.
Stan keeps Grindle hooked by promising to reunite him with his deceased college sweetheart Dorrie, who died in a botched back-alley abortion Grindle convinced her to seek. A reluctant Molly plays "Dorrie" in a series of sessions but eventually breaks character, destroying the illusion, and Grindle vows revenge for Stan's lies. Stan tells Molly to go back to carnival life. At Lillith's suggestion he decides to go into hiding with Grindle's money but discovers that Lillith has stolen it. When he confronts her, she threatens to have him committed to a mental institution, and he narrowly escapes. He flees and resorts to performing as a mentalist at increasingly shoddy venues, barely evading the men Grindle continually sends after him. Eventually he becomes a hobo, staying afloat by giving Tarot readings and selling horoscopes. He descends into alcoholism and depression.
His life in shambles, Stan finds a carnival owner and asks to join the sideshow as a palm reader. The owner gives Stan some whiskey but refuses his proposal, saying the show is full. But as Stan begins to drunkenly stumble out, the owner changes his tune and invites Stan back in with a job offer: "Of course, it's only temporary – just until we get a real geek."

The ambitious Stanton "Stan" Carlisle works in a sideshow as carny and assistant of the mentalist Zeena Krumbein, who is married with the alcoholic Pete. The couple had developed a secret code to pretend to read minds and was successful in the show business before Pete starts drinking. Stan stays with them expecting to learn their code and leave the carnival to be a successful mentalist. Stan also flirts with the gorgeous Molly that lives in the carnival with the strong Bruno. Zeena and The Savage, an alcoholic man that eats live chickens that the audiences believe that is a savage, are the greatest attractions of the sideshow. When Stan gives booze to Pete and he dies, Stan finds that Pete had drunk methyl alcohol and not his booze, but he feels guilty for the death of him. Zeena teaches the code to him and Molly helps Stan to learn them. After an incident, Stan is forced to marry Molly and he decides to move to Chicago with her to become a sensation in a night club. One day, he meets the psychologist Lilith Ritter and he finds that she tapes the sessions with her clients from the high-society. The trickster Stan envisions a scheme to raise a high amount of money swindling rich people. But his ambition brings him back to the life in the sideshow.

Lured

Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball) is an American who came to London to perform in a show, but now is working as a taxi dancer. She is upset to find out that friend and fellow dancer Lucy Barnard (Tanis Chandler) is missing and believed to be the latest victim of the notorious "Poet Killer," who lures victims with ads in newspapers' personal columns and sends poems to taunt the police.
Scotland Yard Inspector Harley Temple (Charles Coburn) asks if Sandra would be willing to work undercover to help find her missing friend and the killer. He sees first-hand how observant she is and gives her a temporary police identification card and a gun. Sandra is asked to answer personal ads, watched over by an officer bodyguard, H.R. Barrett (George Zucco).
By coincidence, she meets the dashing man-about-town stage revue producer Robert Fleming (George Sanders). In the meantime, Sandra answers an ad placed by Charles van Druten (Boris Karloff), a former fashion designer who is now mentally imbalanced. Barrett has to come to her rescue.
She also needs to be saved, this time by Fleming, from a mysterious figure named Mr. Moryani (Joseph Calleia). He apparently lures young women to South America by offering them a promising opportunity while, in reality, wanting to recruit them for forced slavery or other forced services.
Fleming shares a stately home with Julian Wilde (Cedric Hardwicke), his business partner and friend. Fleming ultimately does win Sandra's heart, and they become engaged. Inspector Temple thanks her for her efforts and even agrees to come to their engagement party.
During the party, however, Sandra accidentally discovers incriminating evidence in Fleming's desk, including a distinctive bracelet worn by her friend Lucy and her photograph. Fleming is placed under arrest. Circumstantial evidence mounts up, his typewriter is identified as the one used for the poems, although he adamantly denies any involvement in the crimes. Sandra believes him, but the Yard does not.
Lucy's body is found in the river. Wilde assures his incarcerated friend that he will hire the best attorney and do everything possible to clear him. It occurs to Inspector Temple that it is Wilde who fancies poetry and more likely to be the killer, but having no proof, he and Sandra arrange a trap wherein Fleming supposedly confessed to the murders without Temple knowing while he discusses his suspicion of Wilde with the man openly before finding out about the confession. As he is preparing to flee the country in fear of being caught onto quickly thereafter, Wilde is visited by Sandra at home. He is secretly obsessed with her, just as he was with the other women he abducted. Wilde at first expresses his desire for Sandra, then removes his scarf and tries to strangle her. Scotland Yard's men break through the windows to rescue her just in time. Fleming is set free, and he and Sandra drink to better days ahead.

A serial killer in London is murdering young women he meets through the personal columns of newspapers. He announces each of his murders to the police by sending them a cryptic poem. After a dancer disappears, the police enlist an American friend of hers, Sandra Carpenter, to answer advertisements in the personal columns, and lure the killer.

Storm Fear

After being badly wounded during a heist, bank robber Charlie Blake (Wilde) takes refuge in a remote New England farm house owned by his older brother Fred (Duryea), who lives there with wife Elizabeth and young son David. A weak and unhappy man, Fred reluctantly harbors the fugitive and his gang members, the brutal Benjie and their moll Edna.
Time passes and Charlie's men are anxious to move on, but he needs rest to recover. He is also still in love with Fred's wife Elizabeth (Wallace), with whom he once had an affair. Elizabeth's hired hand Hank is in love with her as well. Fred must endure both situations, plus the taunting and physical abuse of Benjie.
More trouble ensues when suspicions arise that Elizabeth's son was fathered by Charlie, not her husband. A heavy snow and his bullet wound delay Charlie's escape, but when Fred sneaks away to contact the police, David guides the gang members through the snowy terrain. Elizabeth is tied up and left behind.
Edna breaks a leg in a fall and Charlie cruelly abandons her in the wilderness. Hank comes across Fred's frozen corpse. An argument breaks out between Charlie and Benjie along the way, resulting in David picking up a gun and killing Benjie with it. Charlie now has the robbery loot to himself, but Hank turns up and shoots him. Charlie dies without acknowledging for the boy whether he is his real father.

After being wounded by a bullet, bank robber Charlie Blake seeks shelter with his gang at his brother's mountain retreat. There he rekindles his romance with his brother's wife and reconnects with the boy he believes is his son.

Scarlet Street

In 1934, Christopher "Chris" Cross (Edward G. Robinson), a meek amateur painter and cashier for clothing retailer, J.J. Hogarth & Company, is fêted by his employer, honoring him for twenty-five years of service since 1909. Company head Hogarth presents him with a watch and kind words, then leaves and gets into a car with a beautiful young blonde. Chris muses to an associate that he wonders what it is like "to be loved by a young girl".
Walking home through Greenwich Village, he helps Kitty (Joan Bennett), a young woman who is being attacked by a man, stunning the assailant with his umbrella. Chris, unaware that the attacker was Johnny (Dan Duryea), Kitty's boyfriend, walks with her to her apartment building. She accepts his offer for a cup of coffee at a nearby bar. From Chris's comments about art, Kitty believes him to be a wealthy painter.
Chris becomes enamored with her. He is in a loveless marriage, tormented by his shrewish wife Adele (Rosalind Ivan) who idolizes her previous husband, a policeman who drowned while trying to rescue a woman. After Chris confesses that he is married, Johnny convinces Kitty to pursue a relationship in order to extort money from Chris. Kitty inveigles him to rent an apartment for her, one that can also be his art studio. To finance an apartment, Chris steals $500 ($9,000 today) in insurance bonds from his wife and later $1000 ($17,900) from his employer.
Unknown to Chris, Johnny unsuccessfully tries selling some of Chris's paintings, attracting the interest of art critic David Janeway (Jess Barker). Kitty is maneuvered by Johnny into pretending that she painted them, charming the critic with Chris's own descriptions of his art, and Janeway promises to represent her. However, Adele sees her husband's paintings in the window of a commercial art gallery as the work of "Katherine March" and accuses Chris of having copied her work. Chris confronts Kitty, who claims she sold them because she needed the money. He is so delighted that his paintings are appreciated, albeit only under Kitty's signature, that he happily lets her become the public face of his art. She becomes a huge commercial success, although Chris never receives any of the money.
Adele's supposedly dead first husband, Higgins (Charles Kemper), suddenly appears at Chris's office to extort money from him. He explains he had not drowned but had stolen $2,700 from the purse of the suicide he tried to save. Already suspected as corrupt for taking bribes from speakeasies, he had taken the opportunity to escape his crimes and his wife. Chris lets Higgins into his wife's room, ostensibly so he can get the insurance money from his death but does so when she is asleep in the room, thinking that his marriage will be invalidated when his wife wakes and sees her still-living first husband.
Believing he can now marry Kitty, Chris goes to see her, but finds out that Kitty has cheated on him. He later confronts Kitty, but still asks her to marry him; she scorns him for being old and refuses to marry him. Enraged, he stabs her to death. The police visit Chris at his job, not for the murder but his earlier embezzlement. Although his boss refuses to press charges, Chris is fired. Johnny is accused of Kitty's murder.
At the trial, all of the deceptions work against Johnny, despite his attempts to implicate Chris, and Chris denies painting any of the pictures. Johnny is convicted and put to death for Kitty's murder, Chris goes unpunished, and Kitty is erroneously recognized as a great artist.
Haunted by the murder, Chris attempts to hang himself. Although rescued, he is impoverished with no way of claiming credit for his own paintings and tormented by thoughts of Kitty and Johnny being together for eternity, loving each other.

Chris Cross, 25 years a cashier, has a gold watch and little else. That rainy night, he rescues delectable Kitty from her abusive boyfriend Johnny. Smitten, amateur painter Chris lets Kitty think he's a wealthy artist. At Johnny's urging, she lets Chris establish her in an apartment (with his shrewish wife's money). There, Chris paints masterpieces; but Johnny sells them under Kitty's name, with disastrous and ironic results.

I Walk Alone

Frankie Madison (Burt Lancaster) and Noll "Dink" Turner (Kirk Douglas) are rum-running partners during Prohibition. They get into a shootout with some would-be hijackers after their liquor, attracting the attention of the police. The two men split up, but not before making a bargain that if one is caught, he will still get an equal share when he gets out of jail. Frankie is sent to prison for 14 years. When he is finally set free, he goes to see Noll.
In the interim, Noll has built up a swanky nightclub. When the impatient Frankie shows up there, Noll stalls, sending him to dinner with his singer girlfriend Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott). Noll instructs Kay to find out what Frankie is after. He learns that Frankie expects him to honor their old bargain. He tells his old partner that the deal only applied to their old nightclub, which shut down years ago. Dave (Wendell Corey), the only member of the old gang Frankie trusted, had him sign legal papers to that effect some time ago. Frankie's share by Noll's reckoning is less than $3000. Furious, Frankie slugs Noll and leaves to recruit men to take what he figures he is owed. However, Noll had Dave tie up ownership of the nightclub between several corporations, with bylaws that make it impossible for him to hand over anything. Furthermore, the men supposedly backing Frankie actually work for Noll. Frankie is beaten up and left in the alley.
Meanwhile, Noll informs Kay that he intends to marry wealthy socialite Alexis Richardson (Kristine Miller), explaining that he is doing so to ensure the success of the nightclub with which he has become increasingly obsessed. He sees no reason they cannot continue their relationship. Repulsed by the idea and strongly attracted to Frankie, Kay quits and, overcoming Frankie's suspicions, joins his side.
Dave, aghast at how Frankie has been treated, tells him that he is willing to pass along what he knows, which is enough to bring Noll down. However, he foolishly tells Noll what he intends to do, and is killed by Noll's henchman. The murder is pinned on Frankie.
Evading a police manhunt, Frankie and Kay go to Noll's mansion. Though Noll is waiting with a loaded gun, Frankie manages to take it away from him. The three drive to the nightclub. By threatening Noll, Frankie extracts a written confession from him, which he gives to the police when they show up. Noll is taken away, but gets free and goes gunning for Frankie. He is shot dead by a policeman.

Frankie Madison returns to New York after 14 years in prison. Noll Turner, Frankie's former partner in bootlegging, is now a wealthy nightclub manager, and Frankie is expecting him to honor a verbal '50:50' agreement they made when he was caught and Noll got away. Fat chance! Can Frankie, who knows only the strong-arm methods of Prohibition, win out against Big Business? It'll be tough...even with the unlikely alliance of torch singer Kay (Noll's ex-girlfriend).

Cry of the City

Martin Rome (Richard Conte), a hardened criminal, is recuperating in a hospital from a shootout that leaves a police officer dead. At the hospital, he is briefly visited by his fiancée, Teena Ricante (Debra Paget). A shady lawyer representing another crook, Niles (Berry Kroeger), claims that he participated in a jewel robbery with her in which a woman was killed. Rome is innocent of the jewel robbery, but the police suspect that he carried out the robbery in conjunction with Teena, and begin a search for her.
With the help of a trusty (Walter Baldwin), he escapes from the prison ward, afraid that the lawyer will try to frame Teena and himself. He is pursued by an old adversary, police lieutenant Candella (Victor Mature), who grew up in his neighborhood and knows his family. Rome, feverish from his bullet wounds, receives help from his brother Tony, who worships him, and an old girlfriend, Brenda (Shelley Winters). Meanwhile, Candella and his partner (Fred Clark), track him down through the streets of New York. He locates the female accomplice of the real jewel thief/murderer, a strongly built masseuse named Rose Givens (Hope Emerson). He tricks her and she is apprehended by the police. In the struggle she shoots at Rome, wounding Candella.
Candella, shot in the shoulder, flees the hospital in his obsessive pursuit of Rome, ultimately tracking him down and killing him. Just before that happens, Tony, in a final break with his brother's criminality, refuses to steal their parents' savings.

Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?

Thieves' Highway

A war-veteran-turned-truck driver Nico "Nick" Garcos (Richard Conte) arrives at home to find that his foreign-born father, a fruit farmer, has lost his legs and was forced to sell his truck. He learns that his father was crippled at the hands of an unscrupulous produce dealer in San Francisco, Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb). Garcos vows revenge.
Garcos goes into business with Ed Kinney, who bought the Garcos truck, and drives a truckload of apples to San Francisco, where he runs into Figlia. With the help of other drivers and a streetwalker (Valentina Cortese), he defeats Figlia and restores his family honor.

The soldier Nick Garcos returns back home from the war very happy with gifts for his parents Yanko and Parthena Garcos and money in his pocket to open a business and get married with his girlfriend Polly Faber. Out of blue, Nick realizes that his father lost both legs and Yanko, who was a truck driver, tells that he was cheated by the dealer Mike Figlia in the San Francisco's market when he delivered a truckload of tomatoes and was not paid. He believes that his accident was provoked by Figlia's gangsters. He also tells that he sold the truck to a driver named Ed Kinney that has not paid him. Nick meets Ed and tells that he will bring the truck back, but Ed proposes a deal with apples, where they may earn a great amount. Nick invests his savings in another truck and buys apples from a Polish farmer. They need to drive directly to the market in San Francisco without sleeping to keep the fruits fresh, but Ed's truck has problem on its axle and Nick arrives first. Mike Figlia hires the Italian whore Rica to distract Nick but she falls for him and tells that Mike is robbing his cargo. Mike is forced to share his selling with Nick and he earns a large amount. Then he calls Polly and asks her to meet him to get married, and Rica tells to Nick that Polly is only interested in his money. When Nick is robbed by Mike's gangsters, he learns who really loves him. But Nick still has to settle the score with Mike.

Race Street

When his bookie pal Hal is killed, nightclub owner Dan Gannin intends to do something about it. His police pal Lt. Runson warns him not to take the law into his own hands.
Also concerned is Dan's girlfriend, Robbie, a war widow. But when two thugs working for a mob boss blindfold and beat Dan, a disloyal Robbie is also in the room.
It turns out Robbie is not a widow at all but the showgirl ex-wife of the crime kingpin, Phil Dixon, and still working for him. She denies it at first, but Dan recalls recognizing the scent of her perfume while blindfolded.
Lt. Runson tries to provide Dan protective custody, but another bookie betrays Dan to the mob. The lieutenant is about to be shot when Dan intercepts the bullet. He dies as Dixon is placed under arrest.

Nice-guy bookie Dan Gannin plans to quit the racket; he's opening a new night club with his torch-singing sister as main attraction. But Dan's best friend Hal runs afoul of "protection" crooks, and Dan goes after them like a one-man police force despite the admonishments of Lt. Barney Runson. But there's one thing Dan didn't bargain on...

Naked Alibi

Police chief Joe Conroy (Hayden) is relieved of his police duties after he accuses a "respected community man" Al Willis (Barry) of murdering a group of police officers. Despite his lack of authority, Conroy puts so much heat on Willis that the latter, making the excuse to his wife Helen (Marcia Henderson) that he needs time to clear his head, skips town for Border City, where he's living a double life as a hoodlum with bar-singer mistress Marianna (Grahame), whom he treats abusively.
Conroy tails Willis to Border City in Mexico, where he recruits Marianna to his scheme to bring Willis to justice. A climactic cat-and-mouse game ends in a rooftop shootout.

A police chief fired for brutality, tries to get evidence on a man suspected of killing 3 police detectives.

Bad for Each Other

Army colonel and doctor Tom Owen returns home to Coalville, Pennsylvania, on leave. He learns from wealthy mine owner Dan Reasonover that his brother Floyd, a mine safety engineer killed in an explosion, had betrayed Dan's trust by purchasing substandard equipment and taking kickbacks. Floyd was also heavily in debt. Tom wants to pay Dan back, but Dan tells him to forget about the money.
Dan's daughter, the twice-divorced socialite Helen Curtis, meets Tom at a party and asks him for a date. She arranges for him to meet Dr. Homer Gleeson, who runs a fancy Pittsburgh clinic catering to wealthy women with imaginary health problems. Gleeson's associate has quit to open his own practice, so he offers Tom the vacancy. Knowing that Tom has vowed to pay his late brother's debts, Helen talks him into accepting, despite the fact that Tom enjoys the security his army career offers and knows his mother believes he should return to Coalville. As a nurse to assist him, Tom hires Joan Lasher, an attractive and idealistic young woman who plans to become a doctor herself.
Tom and Helen begin dating. Tom proposes marriage and she accepts. Her own father warns Tom that her wealth poisoned her first two marriages, but Tom remains adamant.
Lasher becomes disappointed that Tom treats wealthy society patients for minor ailments when he could be doing more good elsewhere. Dr. Jim Crowley, a former sergeant who was inspired by Tom's example to resume his medical studies, comes to Tom to ask for a job. Tom sends him to see Dr. Lester Scobee, who cares for the miners of Coalville and their families.
Helen's rich and influential aunt, Mrs. Roger Nelson, needs emergency surgery. Gleeson is her personal physician, but pleads with Tom to perform the operation because he himself has not performed surgery in ten years. When Tom does so and allows Gleeson to take credit with the patient, Lasher upbraids Tom for his unethical behavior and quits. Gleeson decides to charge Mrs. Nelson an exorbitant fee, which he splits with Tom. Mrs. Nelson learns Tom performed the operation and questions his ethics. Before Tom can defend himself, he is called away to help at a mine explosion at Coalville.
Tom enters the mine and joins Jim treating and rescuing miners far underground. They rescue the miners, but Jim is fatally injured. Tom tells Helen he is quitting the Pittsburgh clinic to work in Coalville. Helen tells him she cannot live there, so they reluctantly part. Tom arrives at his new office to find Joan already at work.

There is no way to write a "spoiler"---is there actually somebody somewhere who, ten minutes into this 1950's film, wouldn't know where it is going and will end up---since it is a strictly written-by-the-numbers corruption and redemption meller that finds: number 1, a doctor returns from the Korean War to his Pennsylvania mining hometown, (and 2) must choose between dedicating himself to treating the suffering poor (or 3) build himself a swank office and get rich by flattering wealthy women with imaginary ailments. Throw in elements no. 5,Lizabeth Scott as a rich, spoiled, twice-divorced woman with a lip stiffer than his, and number 6, Dianne Foster as a nurse bent on helping all mankind, and there are no surprises left, especially if one take note of the name of Irving Wallace among the writers, the title and Scott billed above Foster. The only surprise here is that this film wasn't from Universal-International and directed by Douglas Sirk.

Devil in a Blue Dress

Set in 1948, in the Watts area of Los Angeles, the story begins with Easy out-of-work and unable to pay his mortgage. He is sitting in a bar run by Joppy, a friend from Texas, when a man named DeWitt Albright walks into the bar and offers him a job finding a young woman named Daphne Monet. Monet, a young white woman, is rumored to be hanging out in bars frequented mostly by African Americans, although white women are allowed inside.
At the bar Easy meets two old friends, Coretta and Dupree from Texas, among many other people that he knew from his former life in the South. Coretta says that she knows Daphne, but gives an incorrect address to Easy. He goes home with them and has sex with Coretta, although Dupree is asleep next room, and then leaves her in the early morning only to be arrested by the LAPD shortly thereafter and, after some questioning, he is told that Coretta is dead and that he is a suspect in Coretta's murder.
When he finally does find Monet, he figures out that she has stolen a large amount of money from a man named Todd Carter, who is a local wealthy businessman. Albright wanted to claim it for himself. Eventually, Albright finds Monet through Easy, who is trying to shield the thieving woman.
With the help of his friend Mouse (who shows up mid-way through the story, due to a half-hearted invitation from Easy and domestic strife back home in Texas) he finds Monet with Albright and Joppy. They rescue her, kill Joppy and Albright, and then Mouse reveals that Monet is actually Ruby, an African-American woman passing as white, and the sister of a local gangster named Green. Mouse and Easy blackmail Ruby, taking her money and dividing it into thirds for each of them. Daphne/Ruby leaves shortly thereafter and Easy has to clean up the mess with the police and Todd Carter, who had initially hired Albright to find her as he really did love her and not his money.
Easy approaches Carter and requests his help with the police. He blackmails him by saying that he will leak the information about his love for a black woman unless he is protected from the law. Carter does so. At the conclusion, Mouse goes back to Texas, Easy takes up detective work, and Ruby disappears.

It is 1948 in LA and Ezikeal "Easy" Rawlins, an African-American World War II veteran, is looking for work. At his friend's bar, he is introduced to a white man, DeWitt Albright, who is looking for someone to help him find a missing white woman assumed to be hiding somewhere in LA's Black community. This woman, Daphane Monet, happens to be the fiancée of a wealthy "blue blood," Todd Carter, who is currently the favorite in the city's mayoralty race. Daphane Monet is known to frequent the Black jazz clubs in LA. Easy, innocently, accepts Albright's offer; however, he quickly finds himself amidst murder, crooked cops, ruthless politicians, and brutalizing hoodlums. This is a Chandler-esque "who-done-it" with an African-American theme.

Finger Man

Ex-convict Casey Martin (Lovejoy) is caught heisting a truck shipment. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, he agrees to work undercover to nail mobster Dutch Becker (Tucker). Torn between the two men is Martins's ex-girlfriend and gangster's moll Gladys Baker (Castle). When she casts her lot with Martin, she gets murdered by Becker's sadistic chief henchmen Lou Terpe (Carey). In the end Martin brings down the gang and is allowed to go on his way.

Treasury agents, desperate to get evidence on syndicate kingpin Dutch Becker, give ex-con hood Casey Martin a choice...life in prison or courting sudden death as a government 'finger man.' Finding that his sister is now a drug addict thanks to Becker, Martin agrees to go undercover. Becker's chief aide proves to be sadistic Lou Terpe, Martin's former cellmate whom he can't stand the sight of. And the danger hanging over Martin expands to threaten those around him...

Tight Spot

Sherry Conley (Ginger Rogers) is a model who is in prison for a crime she did not knowingly commit. She is offered a deal for her freedom by U.S. attorney Lloyd Hallett (Edward G. Robinson) if she will testify as a witness in the trial of mobster Benjamin Costain (Lorne Greene). Hallett hides her in a hotel under the protection of a squad of detectives led by Lt. Vince Striker (Brian Keith), where she stalls making a final decision while she enjoys expensive meals from room service. Despite the presence of the prison matron escort Willoughby, sparks begin to fly between cop and potential witness.
Through his corrupt inside contacts, Costain finds out where Conley is being kept. She survives an assassination attempt when Striker kills the assailant, but Willoughby is shot and seriously injured. Costain and his thugs ostensibly abduct Striker, who is revealed to be one of Costain's insiders. Costain has learned that Conley is being transferred to jail, where Striker will have to kill Conley himself if he does not arrange another attempt at the hotel. He is told to leave a window unlocked for another killer. Conley remains uncooperative, especially after Hallett attempts to use her sister Clara (Eve McVeagh) to persuade her.
Inadvertently, Striker almost reveals his duplicity to Hallett, but a phone call to Hallett interrupts. Willoughby has died in the hospital. Conley, who shared a respect for and friendship with Willoughby, then agrees to testify against Costain. Striker, who cares for Conley, fails to dissuade her and reluctantly proceeds with the plan. Hallett returns to escort Conley to jail moments before the killer strikes. Talking with Striker while she changes her clothes in another room, Hallett's banter brings a jumpy Striker to a breaking point. Striker abruptly kicks open her door and saves Conley, but at the cost of his own life. The opened window tells Conley and Hallett that he had set up her murder but changed his mind.
Conley takes the stand at Costain's trial, giving her occupation as "gang buster".

Sherry Conley, a street tough and cynical woman with an unhappy family background, is taken from prison to a hotel, where the DA tries to convince her to testify against a mobster. Sherry is reluctant because the last witness was murdered before he made it to the stand, and why should she stick her neck out? At the hotel, several attempts are made on her life, and she falls for Vince, the policemen guarding her.

Dial 1119

Homicidal escaped mental patient Gunther Wyckoff (Marshall Thompson) arrives by bus in Terminal City. As he gets off, he is confronted by the bus driver for stealing his Colt pistol. Wyckoff uses it to kill the driver.
Wyckoff tries to locate a man named Dr. Faron, at both his office and then at his home address - an apartment building - with no luck. As he leaves the building, it is a warm night, and he notices the Oasis Bar across the street. He goes into the bar and finds there is a good vantage point to observe the entryway to the apartment building. The bar is tended by Chuckles and his assistant/relief-person Skip (whose wife is in hospital about to have a baby).
Chuckles, seeing a news flash story on the TV, notices Wyckoff is one of his customers and tries, unsuccessfully, to reach a pistol he has stashed behind the bar. At this point, there are four patrons in the bar: the sluttish barfly Freddy; the young Helen, who is accompanied by an attentive older gentleman, Earl; and newspaper reporter Harrison D. Barnes. Chuckles then tries to telephone the police, but Wyckoff shoots Chuckles dead as he is placing the call. Wyckoff then orders the bar patrons to occupy one table, where he can keep an eye on them. Meanwhile, the gunshot and subsequent scream by Helen attracts attention. As a beat police officer approaches the bar, he is shot in the leg by Wyckoff. Bystanders rescue the officer, and a call is made for reinforcements to respond to a man barricaded in the bar.
The five hostages discuss what might be going on with Wyckoff. The relief barman, when asked, notes the gun holds eight rounds, but while he is speaking, Wyckoff replaces the magazine with a new one.
Wyckoff calls the police. He demands the police stay away, but deliver Dr. Faron to the bar within 25 minutes or he will kill the hostages. It is revealed that Faron is the local police psychiatrist. The press set up TV coverage near the bar, while the crowd of onlookers grows.
As police discuss tactics, Faron is found and brought to the bar. Being a newspaperman, Harrison reminds the others that Wyckoff's crime was a big local story three years before. As Faron pleads with the police to let him attempt to handle Wyckoff, they try to enter the bar undetected. Wyckoff becomes aware of the attempted breach and seriously wounds an officer. Faron again pleads with the police, and says, "I demand that you let me do my job!", which Wyckoff sees on the TV. The police captain resents Faron's success at getting Wyckoff a light sentence the first time around. The police prepare a breach en masse with two minutes left before Wyckoff's deadline, but Faron slips away and enters the bar. He tries to convince Wyckoff he is delusional, but after some discussion, Wyckoff becomes agitated and shoots Faron dead.
The phone rings, and Skip knows it is the hospital calling about his wife. Desperate to answer, he struggles with Wyckoff; at the same moment, the police detonate an explosive charge and extinguish the lights. In the confusion, one of the hostages uses Chuckles under-counter gun to shoot Wyckoff. In shock, he staggers outside and is cut down by police gunfire. As he kneels over Faron's body, the police captain rhetorically asks an officer, "How far does man have to go to prove that he's right?"

A young mentally-ill killer, Gunther Wyckoff, escapes from a mental institution, murders a bus driver and, then, takes six hostages in a bar. The gun in Wyckoff's hand kills without emotion or pity, wielded by a man bare of emotion. It begins as a moral question whether an insane killer should or should not be sent to the electric chair, but goes elsewhere before it ends.

His Kind of Woman

Down on his luck, professional gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) accepts a mysterious job that will take him out of the country for a year but pays $50,000. He accepts a $5,000 down payment and tickets that will take him to an isolated Mexican resort, Morro's Lodge, where he will receive further instructions. Milner is attracted to the only other passenger on his chartered flight to the resort, Lenore Brent (Jane Russell).

Nick Ferraro, deported crime boss, needs to re-enter the USA. His plan involves "honest" gambler Dan Milner, who's subjected to a series of "misfortunes," then bribed to take a trip to Mexico. En route, Dan meets chanteuse Lenore Brent, truly his kind of woman. But on arrival at posh Morros Lodge in Baja California, Dan finds the ostensibly rich, carefree guests all playing roles...except, possibly, ham actor Mark Cardigan. What does Ferraro want with him? Can he trust anyone?

Lady on a Train

San Francisco debutante Nicki Collins goes to visit her aunt in New York. Her father's employee, Haskell, is to meet her and facilitate her stay. Before reaching Grand Central, Nicki's train makes a brief stop and she looks up from reading a mystery by novelist Wayne Morgan—and witnesses a murder in a nearby building.
Upon arrival, she slips away from Haskell and goes to the police, but the desk sergeant, seeing the novel in her hand, assumes she imagined the crime. She decides that Wayne Morgan must be able to solve a murder, finds him, and pesters him to get involved. Following Morgan and his fiancee into a theater, she sees a newsreel about the "accidental" death of shipping magnate Josiah Waring—and recognizes him as the murder victim.
Unable to find the crime scene, Nicki sneaks onto the grounds of Waring's mansion. She is mistaken for Margo Martin, who was expected but has not come. Waring's will is read by his lawyer, Wiggam: Waring's nephews Arnold and Jonathan are not surprised to receive a token $1 inheritance, while the bulk of the estate goes to Margo Martin—his trophy fiancee, a singer at a nightclub he owns. Nicki snoops around the house and takes away a pair of bloody slippers that disprove the story of an accident. Two conspirators in the murder try but fail to stop her: Saunders, who turns out to be the nightclub's manager and another heir, and the chauffeur Danny.
Back with Haskell, Nicki makes another attempt to involve Morgan, phoning him and pretending a man is there attacking her—not realizing that Danny is there and is about to. Before he can, she makes another call, to her father. While she is singing to him, Danny spots the slippers and departs, separately attacking Haskell and Morgan. (Nicki assumes they mistakenly attacked each other.)
For various reasons, everyone goes to the nightclub. Nicki speaks to Margo and becomes suspicious. She locks Margo in a closet, goes on stage, and sings in her place. When freed, Margo tells Saunders she was never interested in the plot and stalks off; she is later murdered.
Arnold and Jonathan make romantic overtures to Nicki, but Saunders has her called backstage. He and Danny admit their involvement in the murder and threaten her, but Morgan breaks into the room and Nicki takes the slippers back. A series of backstage fights follows. Nicki escapes back to the stage and sings again. Morgan learns that one of the people she is sitting with—Arnold, Jonathan, and Wiggam—must be the murderer and manages to warn her. Meanwhile, Morgan's fiancee, thinking he is two-timing her with Nicki, dumps him.
Danny shoots Saunders. Nicki and Morgan leave with the slippers, but are arrested in the morning based on false information from Danny. Nicki tries to present the slippers, but Morgan's valet has them—and proudly shows how clean they now are.
Arnold, Jonathan, and Haskell all arrive at the jail to pay Nicki's bail. Arnold says the Warings would like to meet her and drives her to their company's offices, but nobody is there. They talk about the case and he admits that he had motive, but so did Jonathan, Wiggam, and especially Saunders. Nicki, frightened, manages to get away from him.
Finding Jonathan in the building, she tells him that Arnold is the murderer. They hide in a room—and it is the scene of the crime she saw from the train. Jonathan is the murderer. He confesses braggingly: next he will kill her, frame Arnold, and kill Arnold supposedly while defending Nicki.
Arnold slips into the room and grabs Jonathan's gun, but then Morgan arrives and mistakes the situation, and Jonathan gets it back. As Morgan tries unconvincingly to tell Jonathan that the police will be coming, they do.
In the final scene, Nicki and Wayne Morgan are newlyweds on a train. She is enjoying his newest book so much she tells the porter not to make up their beds until she finishes reading, and Morgan promptly tells her how it ends.

While waiting at a train station, Nikki Collins witnesses a murder from a nearby building. When she brings the police to the scene of the crime, they think she's crazy since there's no body. She then enlists a popular mystery writer to help with her sleuthing.

Destination Murder

During a five-minute movie intermission, Jackie Wales leaves a theater, gets into a car, changes into a messenger's outfit, rings the doorbell of a man named Mansfield, shoots him, then rushes back to the theater and his date.
After her father is shot, Laura Mansfield sees the killer hurdle the house's gate. At the police station, she looks at suspects in a lineup. One of them is Jackie, who later offers her a ride. Laura lets him drive her home, then sees Jackie hurdle the gate as her dad's murderer did.
The police lieutenant in charge ignores her tip, so Laura dates Jackie to keep an eye on him. He loses money gambling and goes to a nightclub called the Vogue to get a payoff from the men who run it. Instead, the boss, Armitage, brutally beats Jackie while the club's manager, Stretch Norton, starts the music of a player piano to drown out the noise.
Laura is frustrated by Lt. Brewster's lack of action in solving her father's case. She takes a job as a cigarette girl at the club to learn more about Jackie's employer. Alice Wentworth, a gold-digging woman Armitage loves who flirts with Stretch, goes to Jackie with a plan. Write a letter confessing to the murder, implicating Armitage for hiring him, then get a $5,000 blackmail payment that Alice will split with him. The scheme works.
From the time they spend together, Laura ends up falling in love with Stretch and confessing her true identity. What she doesn't realize is that Stretch is the actual boss of the gang; Armitage works for him. Alice is persuaded to double-cross Jackie, then is killed by Armitage at the club. Jackie is also found dead.
Stretch then drugs Armitage, puts a gun in his hand and acts as if his partner is about to betray him, getting Laura to shoot him. Laura's life is in peril, at least until Lt. Brewster and his men rescue her. Laura admits she should have trusted the police to do their job in the first place.

Laura Mansfield's father is killed, apparently by a telegraphic messenger. She spots Jackie Wales in a police lineup, but can't identify him positively. Later, she arranges to meet him, and is convinced he was the killer, but he was acting for someone else. She gets to know Jackie to find out who the boss is, taking a job in the Vogue Club, owned by a man named Armitage. Meanwhile, Alice, Armitage's greedy mistress, goes after Jackie and lures him into blackmailing the nightclub owner. Armitage discovers the betrayal, and kills the two, but Laura schemes to get closer so she can prove him guilty.

Berlin Express

Various people board a U.S. Army train to Berlin:
Frenchwoman Lucienne (Merle Oberon)
American agricultural expert Robert Lindley (Robert Ryan)
Dr. Bernhardt (Paul Lukas), a renowned German activist working for peace and the reunification of his country
Frenchman Perrot (Charles Korvin)
British teacher Sterling (Robert Coote)
Soviet Lieutenant Maxim (Roman Toporow), and
German businessman Otto Franzen (Fritz Kortner)
Dr. Bernhardt tries to become better acquainted with the other passengers, but they all rebuff his overtures because he is a German until Sterling realises who he is, which immediately changes the atmosphere. When he retires to his compartment, he is killed by a bomb. While the others are questioned at the next stop, Frankfurt, they learn that the dead man was actually one of the doctor's bodyguards. Bernhardt had been posing as another passenger, and Lucienne is his secretary.
Bernhardt's enemies are not foiled for long. He is kidnapped from the busy train station in broad daylight after he greets Walther (Reinhold Schünzel), an old, trusted friend. The U.S. Army quickly institutes a search of the city, but when Lucienne begs her fellow travelers to help look for Bernhardt (as they know what he looks like), they at first all decline. One by one, however, they change their minds.
Lucienne suggests they go see Walther, unaware that he has betrayed Bernhardt in return for his missing wife's location. When they get there, they discover only Walther's body. He hanged himself after the kidnappers revealed his wife has been dead all along.
The group then splits up to cover the city, with Lindley accompanying Lucienne to various illegal nightclubs. At the last one, Lindley notices a woman smoking an unusually long cigarette, just like the ones Bernhardt likes. He picks up a discarded butt and shows Lucienne that it has a "B" monogram on it. When the woman turns out to be an entertainer, pretending to know the answers of questions posed by the customers, Lindley asks her where Bernhardt is. Her clown assistant impedes Lindley, allowing her to get away. When Lindley and Lucienne question Sergeant Barnes (Michael Harvey), the American soldier who was sitting with the woman beforehand, he reluctantly agrees to lead them to where she lives.
It is a trap, however. When they get to an abandoned brewery, Barnes turns out to be working with the kidnappers. Now all three are prisoners. Fortunately, an undercover agent had knocked out the clown and taken his place, accompanying the others to the hideout. He is shot when the real clown shows up, but manages to get back to the nightclub and inform the authorities where Bernhardt is being held. American soldiers break in just as Bernhardt and Lucienne are about to be shot, and free the three unharmed. Kessler (Otto Waldis), the ringleader, is killed by Perrot, who turns out to be Bernhardt's would-be assassin.
The passengers reboard the train. Perrot suggests that each of them take a turn guarding Bernhardt in his compartment, with him going first. Afterward, Lindley pieces together various lies Perrot had told and recalls that he knew that the bomb was made from a grenade, but the others dismiss his suspicions. Luckily, he sees Perrot strangling Bernhardt in the reflection from a passing train and saves the doctor's life. Perrot is shot dead as he tries to flee.

In divided Germany just after WWII, people from many different countries are passengers on a train. When one of the passengers, a German working for peace, is kidnapped by people who don't want his ideas to work, the others must set aside their differences and work together to find him in time for an important conference.

Repeat Performance

On New Year's Eve 1946, a woman is standing over her dead husband with a gun in her hand. She panics and goes to her friends for help. While seeking help from her friends at a pair of parties, she wishes that she could live 1946 all over again.
Magically, because she wished exactly at the strike of midnight on New Year's, her wish is granted and she is transported back to the beginning of 1946 with her husband alive. She attempts to relive the year without making the mistakes she and her friends made throughout the year, but certain events repeat themselves nonetheless, leaving Sheila to question whether there really is such a thing as fate or not.
The story climaxes again on New Year's Eve, when through Sheila's interferences over the year, her husband becomes convinced that she's trying to destroy him. He violently confronts her. Her friend William, who believed in Sheila's foresight, shoots her husband with her gun.

Sheila kills her husband at the start of the film with a smoking gun. We don't know how or why. All we know is men are banging on her door and she escapes. There is a notable dialogue as she makes her way to a New Years celebration with Richard Basehart as the poet William William. As she goes up the stairs to John Friday's apartment (her producer) she wishes she could relive the year and undo what she has done. William William, in an offhand remark, states he wishes he was the one who shot Barney, her erstwhile husband. We see that Destiny is not too happy with making changes to her plans.

Hollow Triumph

Just released from prison, John Muller (Paul Henreid) masterminds a holdup at an illegal casino run by Rocky Stansyck. The robbery goes bad, and the mobsters capture some of Muller's men and force them to identify the rest before killing them. Stansyck has a reputation for tracking down and killing his enemies, no matter how long it takes, so Muller decides to leave town and hide. He takes an office job recommended by his law-abiding brother, Frederick (Eduard Franz), but quickly decides that working for a living is not for him.

John Muller, medical school dropout and brilliant crook, plans a holdup which goes a little bit wrong, and finds vindictive gambler Rocky Stansyck after him. At the end of his tether, he stumbles onto a lucky chance to assume an impenetrable new identity as psychiatrist Victor Bartok. But irony piles on as Muller finds it's out of the frying pan, into the fire.

The Mysterious Mr. Valentine

A young girl gets a flat tire, and ends up with her car being stolen. Later, her car is involved in an accident which results in a man's death. The gangsters who stole the car plant the body in her car to make it look like she was at fault.

Janet Spencer (Linda Stirling) has a blow-out and walks into the Armstrong Chemical Company to ask John Armstrong (Tristram Coffin for help, thus arousing the jealousy of Armstrong's wife, Rita (Barbara Woodell. Her own car now missing, Janet drives away in Rita's car, and almost collides with a second car. When she stops she is accused of hitting and killing a man---Ralph Doane, Armstrong's senior partner. Two me offer to take Doane's body to a hospital. Janet meets Steve Morgan (William Henry), a private detective who offers to help her. Steve goes to Sam Priestly (Kenne Duncan), the insurance man for the Doane-Armstrong company. He informs Steve the money has already been pair to Armstrong and throws him out. He visits Rita, who offers him cash if he can find her husband;s girl friend, and he trails Armstrong to the apartment of Lola Carson (Virginia Christine)and later learns that Rita has been arrested for the murder of her husband. At night, Steve and Janet drive to the Doane-Armstrong plant and find the solutions to the various mysteries.

A Woman's Devotion

Artist Trevor Stevenson (Meeker), an emotionally scarred World War II veteran, is on honeymoon in Acapulco with his bride Stella (Rule). Shortly after their arrival, two women are murdered. The audience is presented with clues pointing to Trevor's guilt or innocence depending upon one's point of view.

After six months of marriage to Trevor Stevenson (Ralph Meeker), well-known painter and much-decorated hero of World War Two, Stella (Janice Rule)has found such complete fulfillment of all her romantic dreams that when he is accused or murdering a pretty cantina waitress, on their first night in Acapulco, she angrily defends him to Police Captain Henrique Montros (Paul Henreid),. nephew of Senora Reidl (Fanny Schiller), owner of the pension where they are staying. But when the maid,. Maria (Rosenda Monteros), tries to blackmail her with sketches of the dead girl, made by TRevor on the night she was murdered, and found in the house by the husband and Maria's lover, Amigo Herrera (Yerye Beirute), Stella begins to have second thoughts regarding the innocence of her husband. And his bouts of amnesia enforces her doubts.

The Bribe

Federal agent Rigby (Robert Taylor) travels to Los Trancos on the island of Carlota (somewhere off the coast of Central America) to break up a war-surplus aircraft engine racket and finds himself tempted by corruption, namely Elizabeth Hintten (Ava Gardner), a café singer married to Tug Hintten (John Hodiak), a drunken ex-pilot.
Carwood (Vincent Price) is the brains of the outfit, aided and abetted by J.J. Bealer (Charles Laughton) and Hintten.

In pursuit of stolen aircraft engines on a Central American island, federal agent Rigby meets chief suspect Hintten and his wife Elizabeth, a sultry cafe singer; and is watched by Bealer, a "pie-shaped man" with sore feet. Rigby knows he's on the right track when Bealer offers him money to leave Carlota. When Rigby and Elizabeth are drawn to each other, the gang realizes there's more than one kind of bribe. Everybody sweats.

Six Bridges to Cross

Jerry Florea (Tony Curtis) is planning a heist. The story begins with the events which led a young Florea (Sal Mineo) to become a crook. One day he is shot during a robbery and as a result an ameniable policeman and his wife take him under their wing. As a young man he deludes them, and pretends to no longer have criminal intent and even gets a job at the Brinks. They are unaware he is preparing to rob the establishment. It is only after he and his gang pull off the heist that Florea reconsiders his actions and attempts to make amends for the crime.

Youth gang leader Jerry Florea is shot fleeing from a crime scene by rookie cop Ed Gallagher. Result: "he'll never have children of his own." Ed and Jerry develop a mutually beneficial friendship: Jerry gets the benefit of the doubt, Ed gets information that brings him rapid promotion. As years and jail terms go by, Ed's friendship with this likable rogue becomes strained, as hope for his reform dwindles. Can Jerry redeem himself in the end?

Take One False Step

A married college professor reluctantly agrees to have a drink with an old girlfriend; the next day he's being hunted for her murder.

Prof. Andrew Gentling, in Los Angeles to help found a new college, is inveigled by old flame Catherine Sykes into a midnight drive. Next day Catherine is missing, believed killed; friend Martha convinces Andrew that he's a prime suspect and should investigate before he's arrested. But this only puts Andrew in a more deadly kind of danger.

Sorry, Wrong Number

Leona Stevenson (Barbara Stanwyck) is the spoiled, bedridden daughter of wealthy businessman James Cotterell (Ed Begley). One day, while listening to what seems to be a crossed telephone connection, she hears two men planning a woman's murder. The call cuts off without Leona learning very much other than it is scheduled for 11:15, when a passing train will hide any sounds. She calls the telephone company and the police, but with few concrete details, they can do nothing. Complicating matters, her husband Henry (Lancaster) is overdue and their servants have the night off, leaving her all alone in a Manhattan apartment.
As she makes a number of phone calls trying to locate Henry, Leona inadvertently begins to piece together the mystery. The story is told mostly in flashbacks. When Leona reaches Henry's secretary, Elizabeth Jennings (Dorothy Neumann), she learns that he took an attractive Mrs. Lord to lunch and did not return to the office. Mrs. Lord turns out to be the former Sally Hunt (Ann Richards). Leona stole then-drug store employee Henry from Sally, and married him against her father's wishes. Sally is now the wife of Fred Lord (Leif Erickson), a lawyer in the district attorney's office. From overheard conversations, she learned that her husband was close to resolving an investigation that involves Henry somehow. Sally became so concerned that she followed her husband and two associates to a mysterious meeting in a seemingly abandoned house on Staten Island. The house, according to a "no trespassing" sign, belongs to a W. Evans. Sally arranged to meet Henry for lunch, but before she could warn him, he left the table and did not return. Later, Sally calls Leona with more news. The house on Staten Island has burned down, and three men, including someone named Morano (William Conrad), have been arrested. Waldo Evans (Harold Vermilyea), however, has escaped.
Leona then receives a message from Henry stating he has gone out of town on business he had forgotten about and will not be back until Sunday.
Leona next gets in touch with Dr. Alexander (Wendell Corey), a specialist she had come to New York to see regarding her lifelong heart troubles. Alexander reveals that he gave Henry her prognosis 10 days before, something that Henry kept from her. Henry had married Leona without being aware of her health problems. He first found out when she had a heart attack after they quarreled about his attempt to get a job on his own, rather than being a do-nothing vice president in his father-in-law's business. (James Cotterell, however, sabotaged his job interview.) Her attacks became more and more frequent, until she finally took to her bed about a year ago. Alexander, however, diagnosed Leona's problems as purely psychosomatic; nothing is wrong with her physically.
Leona has got into hysterics and phones a hospital, asking to hire a nurse for the night. The receptionist tells her that they are short staffed and she can only have a nurse if the doctor feels it isn't an emergency. She thinks it is only 11:00pm but discovers her clock has stopped, sending her into worse hysterics.
Then Leona receives a telephone call from Waldo Evans, a chemist working for her father. He reluctantly discloses that Henry recruited him to steal valuable chemicals from the Cotterell drug company to sell to Morano. Later, Henry decided to bypass Morano when Evans was transferred to the New Jersey plant. Morano, however, showed up with two thugs and intimidated Henry into signing an IOU for $200,000 for his lost profits, due in three months. When Henry protested that he did not have that much money, Morano pointed out that Leona must have a large insurance policy. However, with Morano now in custody, Evans stresses that Henry no longer has to raise the now-overdue sum. Waldo leaves Leona with a telephone number to call to locate Henry, but when she calls the number she discovers to her horror that it is for the city morgue.
When Henry finally calls from a train station in New Haven, Connecticut, Leona gives him Evans' message. Seeing that it is only minutes from 11:15, he pleads with her to go to the balcony and scream for help, but she protests that she cannot, though she can hear somebody downstairs. When the intruder enters her bedroom, she begs for her life, then screams. The intruder strangles and kills Leona. Unaware of the policemen about to apprehend him, Henry frantically calls back, only to have a man answer, "Sorry, wrong number."

Leona Stevenson is sick and confined to her bed. One night, whilst waiting for her husband to return home, she picks up the phone and accidentally overhears a conversation between two men planning a murder. She becomes increasingly desperate as she tries to work out who the victim is so the crime can be prevented.

Midnight Manhunt

Midnight Manhunt begins with the shooting death of a master criminal who expires in a wax museum. Reporter Sue Gallagher (Ann Savage) is first on the scene, but she is soon in competition with her boyfriend, fellow reporter Pete Willis (William Gargan). The killer traps Sue in the wax museum when he returns there looking for the body. Leo Gorcey plays the caretaker of the wax museum.

In a cheap hotel-room in New York City Jelke shoots gangster Joe Wells, takes a package from his pocket and flees.Wells staggers into an alley. On her way to her apartment above a wax museum, Sue Gallagher, a reporter for the Chronicle, finds Wells' body and hides his corpse among the wax-figures in the museum and calls her paper to send a photographer so she can get a scoop on the killing of Wells, who had a $5,000 reward for his capture, dead or alive. Meanwhile, Henry Miggs, the museum owner find the body and is ready to call the police but his handyman, Clutch Tracy tells him to conceal it and avoid suspicion. From this point on it is a game of where-is-the-body....and the stolen South American diamonds Wells was carrying.

The Unholy Wife

The film begins with Phyllis (Diana Dors) telling her story in flashbacks. It begins how she meets rich vintner Paul Hochen (Rod Steiger) from Napa Valley in a bar and marries him soon after.
Not long after the marriage, Phyllis begins having an affair with a local rodeo rider, San Sanford (Tom Tryon), seeing him every time her husband is away, which is frequently. One night, her elderly mother-in-law (Beulah Bondi) thinks a burglar is breaking into the house, so she calls the police. Phyllis sees this as an opportunity to kill her husband and blame the burglar for the crime. The plan backfires a day later when she instead kills her husband's best friend. Not wanting to go to jail, she convinces her husband to confess to the killing and they concoct a story that would set him free after the trial.
Unfortunately for her husband, Phyllis lies at the trial and he is put away for murder. The "unholy" wife finally gets the punishment she deserves when her mother-in-law dies of poisoning and the blame goes to Phyllis, who is sent to prison—for a crime she had nothing to do with. Later, she faces her execution in the gas chamber. The film ends with Paul showing their son Michael (Gary Hunley) the vineyard that will someday be his.

Wealthy vintner Paul Hochen meets blonde bombshell Phyllis in a bar...and marries her. In due course, Phyllis is bored by Paul, and finds an exciting new lover in rodeo rider San. To adjust matters, she forms a murderous scheme, which seems to be going wrong...or is it? Will irony intervene in time to thwart a seemingly perfect crime?

The Dark Past

A psychoanalyst and his young family and some friends are taken hostage by a gang led by an escaped killer, Al Walker. The doctor gets the killer to talk to him in an attempt to find out the killer's unconscious motivation for his evil ways.
Walker relates a dramatic dream he's been having since childhood. Eventually, his crimes are traced back to his childhood and lack of parental guidance, and by the end of the night the doctor has calmed the killer's murderous rage and prevented any further killings.

When a detective scoffs at his suggestion that an 18 year-old criminal be referred for psychiatric examination Dr. Andrew Collins, the police psychiatrist, tells him the story of his encounter with Al Walker. Walker had a history of violence and killed the prison warden during an escape. He and his gang took the Collins family and their friends hostage but when Dr. Collins learns that Walker has a violent recurring dream, he offers to help him decipher the dream and determine exactly what has driven him to a life of crime and violence.

Flesh and Fury

Boxing fan Sonya Bartow and manager Pop Richardson are both impressed the first time they see amateur Paul Callan win a fight. They are more amazed, and Sonya somewhat appalled, when they discover later that Paul is deaf.
Pop agrees to train him, even though he's still not quite over the death in the ring of a former protege. A romantic relationship begins with Sonya, but she refuses to marry Paul until he's a champion. She impatiently pushes Pop to set up a title fight, even if he isn't ready yet.
When a reporter, Ann Hollis, comes to interview Paul, she uses sign language. Sonya mocks it as a "dummy" language and Paul explains that he has always been reluctant to use it. Ann begins seeing Paul socially, takes him to a deaf-children's school and introduces him to her deaf father, a successful architect. Sonya drunkenly threatens to kill Ann if she doesn't leave Paul alone.
A doctor performs an operation that restores Paul's hearing. He rushes to Ann's house, but a party there is so noisy that it confuses and overwhelms him. Paul goes back to Sonya and is excitedly told that a fight's been arranged with Logan, the champ. Paul discovers that Sonya has hidden a telegram from the doctor, explaining that a beating in the ring could cause him to again go deaf.
Sonya bets heavily on the fight, but on Paul to lose. The punches he absorbs cause his hearing to fade. With all the distracting noise tuned out, Paul rallies to win the fight. He reunites with Ann, and is relieved when he can hear her speak.

Deaf boxer Paul Callan captures the interest of gold-digging blonde Sonya Bartow and retired fight manager 'Pop' Richardson. For a time, Sonya has the upper hand with Paul, but ultimately a rival appears in the shape of upper-crust reporter Ann Hollis. With a 3-way fight under way for influence over Paul, he takes matters into his own hands, but learns that getting what he wanted isn't necessarily a happy ending.

Behind the High Wall

Inmates pull a prison break, taking the warden and another prisoner as hostages. But when the car gets into a crash, killing the others, the warden makes off with the gang's loot and places the blame on the other hostage.

A group of convicts break out of prison, killing a guard, kidnapping the warden and forcing a reluctant inmate to accompany them. However, when a car accident kills everyone except the warden and the inmate hostage, the warden steals $100,000 of the gang's money, then when police arrive he accuses the inmate of the guard's murder in order to cover up his own crime.

Whispering Footsteps

A bank clerk's life becomes a nightmare because he fits the description of a maniac killer.

A bank clerk in a small town returns home from a vacation in Indianapolis, and hears a story on the radio about a girl found murdered there. The description of the killer fits him exactly, and when two girls are murdered in his town, suspicion falls on him - especially when he can't provide an alibi for the time the girls were killed.

Guest in the House

Martha Proctor believes something evil has come to her home. Her nephew Dr. Dan Proctor arrives with his betrothed, Evelyn Heath, who is a frail invalid. Evelyn is introduced to Aunt Martha as well as Dan's older brother, Douglas, an illustrator, along with Douglas's wife Ann and his model, Miriam.
The women sympathize with Evelyn, knowing of the hard life she has had. Evelyn has bouts of hysteria, involving her fear of birds, and also keeps a secret diary in which she mocks her fiancé Dan and expresses a desire for Douglas instead.
While plotting to seduce Douglas, and accusing Dan of jealousy to make him leave, Evelyn next sets out to rid the house of Miriam, whom she sees as a rival. Her gossip succeeds in getting back to Aunt Martha and turning everyone's suspicions to Miriam, who departs.
Douglas then quarrels with Ann, driven apart by Evelyn's diabolical schemes. Evelyn goes so far as to destroy the goodbye note Ann has written to him. By the time everyone realizes who's behind all this and decide to commit Evelyn to an asylum, a hysterical Evelyn flees from the house, screaming, and plunges to her death.

A young manipulative woman moves in with her fiances family and turns a happy household against itself.

Crashout

Convict Van Duff is the leader of a large-scale prison break. The breakout works as the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison.
Once the coast is clear they then set out on a long, dangerous journey. The convicts take by foot, car, train and truck in an attempt to get to some hidden stolen bank loot. On the journey the doomed prisoners meet with some locals including a farm woman (Beverly Michaels), a kidnapped doctor (Percy Helton) and a young woman on a train (Gloria Talbott).

Convict Van Duff engineers a large-scale prison break; the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison, then set out on a long, dangerous journey by foot, car, train and truck to retrieve Duff's bank loot. En route, as they touch the lives of "regular folks," each has his own rendezvous with destiny.

The Narrow Margin

Detective Sergeant Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) of the Los Angeles Police Department and his partner are assigned to protect a mob boss's widow, Mrs. Frankie Neall (Marie Windsor), as she rides a train from Chicago to Los Angeles to testify before a grand jury. She is also carrying a payoff list that belonged to her murdered husband. On the way to pick her up, Brown bets his partner and friend, Sergeant Gus Forbes (Don Beddoe), what she will be like: "She's the sixty cent special. Cheap. Flashy. Strictly poison under the gravy."
As the detectives and Mrs. Neall leave her apartment, they are waylaid by a mob assassin named Densel (Peter Virgo). Forbes is shot to death, but Densel, although wounded by Brown, escapes. At the train station, Brown discovers that he has been followed by gangsters Joseph Kemp (David Clarke) and Vincent Yost (Peter Brocco). The latter meets him on the train and unsuccessfully tries to bribe him.
Brown's relationship with Mrs. Neall is caustic. She is a cynical and flashy brunette, who flirts with him while expressing doubt about his integrity and commitment to protecting her. By chance Brown makes friends with an attractive blonde train passenger he meets, Ann Sinclair (Jacqueline White), and her too-observant young son Tommy (Gordon Gebbert). When Kemp spots Brown with her, he mistakes Sinclair for his target. After Brown beats him up in a fight and questions him, the policeman learns of the mistake. He turns Kemp over to railroad agent Sam Jennings (Paul Maxey) and hurries to warn Ann. Densel, however, has boarded the train during a brief stop at La Junta, Colorado, and waylays Jennings, freeing Kemp.
When Brown tries to warn Ann that she is in danger, she reveals that she is the real Mrs. Neall. The other woman is an undercover policewoman, and Brown was not told in case he might be corrupt. Densel and Kemp enter Brown's compartment to search for the list and discover the fake Mrs. Neall in the next compartment. Densel shoots her dead as she tries to sneak her gun out of her purse. Then Kemp discovers a badge and police identification, identifying her as Chicago PD policewoman Sarah Meggs, hidden within her record player.
Densel, deducing the truth, goes for Ann. He is cornered in the compartment with her, with Brown outside. Brown uses the reflection from the window of a train on the next track to shoot Densel through the door without endangering Ann, then enters the compartment and finishes him off in a shootout. Kemp jumps off the stopped train, but is quickly arrested. Brown escorts Ann from the Los Angeles train station to the grand jury.

When a mobster's wife decides to testify against his evil deeds, she goes under cover to avoid being killed. Now that he's coming to trial, she has to be escorted across country by train in order to testify. Cop Walter Brown and his partner are assigned the task, but the mob are on their trail.

The Gun Runners

Sam Martin (Audie Murphy) runs a charter boat with his alcoholic first mate Harvey (Everett Sloane). He is forced by financial necessity to run guns for some revolutionaries.

Remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on Hemingway short story. Plot reset to early days of Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts. Sort of a sea-going film noir with bad girl, smarmy villain, and the "innocent" drawn into wrong side of law by circumstances.

City of Chance


Texas girl (Bari) goes to New York, becomes a newspaper reporter, and tries to get her gambler boyfriend (Woods) to come home.

Blonde Ice

Claire (Leslie Brooks) is a society reporter who will do whatever she has to for a story. Claire manages to keep herself in the headlines by marrying and romancing a series of wealthy men, all of whom die under mysterious circumstances. To deflect suspicion from herself, Claire frames her former boyfriend, sportswriter Les Burns.

A society reporter keeps herself in the headlines by marrying a series of wealthy men, all of whom die under mysterious circumstances.

Experiment in Terror

A psychotic killer, Garland "Red" Lynch, uses a campaign of terror to force San Francisco bank teller Kelly Sherwood to steal $100,000 from the bank for him. Despite his threat to kill her or her teenaged sister Toby if she goes to the police, Sherwood contacts the San Francisco office of the FBI, where agent John Ripley takes charge of the case.
Ripley interviews a woman who implies that she's involved in some way in a serious crime, but before she can give Ripley the details, Lynch murders her. Sherwood continues to be terrorized with phone calls, an asthmatic condition making the unseen Lynch's voice all the more sinister.
The FBI identifies the criminal, noting that Red Lynch has a record of convictions for statutory rape, forgery, criminal assault, armed robbery, and murder. They track down his girlfriend, Lisa Soong, whose 6-year-old son has just had a hip replaced. Lynch is paying all the hospital bills. Because of this, Lisa refuses to believe that Lynch is a criminal and will not cooperate with the investigation. Ripley nevertheless manages to get some information about "Uncle Red" from the boy.
Lynch finally gives Sherwood a time and date to steal the money, and just to make sure that she does, he kidnaps her sister Toby and holds her captive. The climax is a chase through Candlestick Park after a nighttime baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. On-field action includes several close-ups of Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale. Ripley and his men ultimately surround Lynch on the infield of the stadium. As Lynch takes aim at a police helicopter, Ripley shoots him and he dies on the pitchers mound.

Kelly Sherwood is terrorized by a man with an asthmatic voice who plans to use her to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works. He threatens to kill her teenage sister Toby, if she tells the police. However she manages to contact F.B.I. agent Ripley.

Experiment Perilous

The story takes place in 1903. During a train trip, psychiatrist Dr. Huntington Bailey (George Brent) meets a friendly older lady (Olive Blakeney). She tells him that she is going to visit her brother Nick and his lovely young wife Allida. Once in New York, Bailey hears that his train companion suddenly died. Shortly afterward, he meets the strange couple and becomes suspicious of Nick's treatment of his wife. Nick (Paul Lukas) keeps Allida (Hedy Lamarr), whom he is trying to pass off as crazy, a virtual prisoner in their London town house [a New York brownstone in the film], cutting off all contact with the outside world. The kindly Bailey takes it upon himself to attempt to free his new love Allida from the control of the insanely jealous Nick.
A frenzied gun battle and fist fight in their home, featuring the destruction of several large aquariums, replete with shattered glass, gushing water and floundering fish may be the most memorable (and most often imitated) scene in the film.

In 1903, Dr. Bailey meets a very strange woman on a train, then hears that she has died under mysterious circumstances. Through a friend, he becomes acquainted with the Bederaux family, all of whom seem to be neurotic and secretive; but the beauty of Alida Bederaux draws him into their circle...deeper than he'd planned. Who's in danger from whom? Who's crazy? Who can fathom the obscure motivations?

Touch of Evil

In a Mexican town along the U.S.–Mexico border, a time bomb is planted in a car. Rudy Linnekar (Jeffrey Green) and woman Zita enter the vehicle and make a slow journey through town to the U.S. border, the woman (Joi Lansing) insisting that she hears something ticking. Newlyweds Miguel "Mike" Vargas (Charlton Heston), a drug enforcement official in the Mexican government, and his wife Susie (Janet Leigh) pass the car several times on foot. The car crosses the border, then explodes.

Mexican Narcotics officer Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas has to interrupt his honeymoon on the Mexican-US border when an American building contractor is killed after someone places a bomb in his car. He's killed on the US side of the border but it's clear that the bomb was planted on the Mexican side. As a result, Vargas delays his return to Mexico City where he has been mounting a case against the Grandi family crime and narcotics syndicate. Police Captain Hank Quinlan is in charge on the US side and he soon has a suspect, a Mexican named Manolo Sanchez. Vargas is soon onto Quinlan and his Sergeant, Pete Menzies, when he catches them planting evidence to convict Sanchez. With his new American wife, Susie, safely tucked away in a hotel on the US side of the border - or so he thinks - he starts to review Quinlan's earlier cases. While concentrating on the corrupt policeman however, the Grandis have their own plans for Vargas and they start with his wife Susie.

Southside 1-1000

Based on a true story, the US secret service searches for a gang of counterfeiters, whose engraver (Morris Ankrum) has secretly constructed his plates while in prison. A federal agent (Don DeFore) poses as the counterfeiters' contact man in order to purchase enough bills to incriminate the gang.

The US secret service goes after a counterfeit ring, whose engraver Eugene Deane has covertly constructed his plates while serving a life sentence in San Quentin. In order to infiltrate the gang, federal agent John Riggs poses as an Eastern kingpin who wants to purchase a large quantity of the fake currency. During his investigations he falls in love with beautiful Nora Craig...

Shadow of a Doubt

Charlie Newton is a bored teenaged girl living in the idyllic town of Santa Rosa, California. She receives wonderful news: Her mother's younger brother (her namesake), Charles Oakley, is arriving for a visit. Two men appear, supposedly working on a national survey. One takes a photo of Uncle Charlie, who demands the roll of film, because "no one takes my photograph." The younger surveyor, Jack Graham, asks young Charlie out, and she guesses that he is really a detective. He explains that her uncle is one of two suspects who may be the "Merry Widow Murderer". Charlie refuses to believe it at first, but then observes Uncle Charlie acting strangely, primarily with a certain news clipping from her father's newspaper. The initials engraved inside a ring he gave her match those of one of the murdered women, and during a family dinner he reveals his hatred of rich widows.

Charlotte 'Charlie' Newton is bored with her quiet life at home with her parents and her younger sister. She wishes something exciting would happen and knows exactly what they need: a visit from her sophisticated and much traveled uncle Charlie Oakley, her mother's younger brother. Imagine her delight when, out of the blue, they receive a telegram from uncle Charlie announcing that he is coming to visit them for awhile. Charlie Oakley creates quite a stir and charms the ladies club as well as the bank president where his brother-in-law works. Young Charlie begins to notice some odd behavior on his part, such as cutting out a story in the local paper about a man who marries and then murders rich widows. When two strangers appear asking questions about him, she begins to imagine the worst about her dearly beloved uncle Charlie.

Christmas Holiday

On Christmas Eve in New Orleans, U.S. Army officer Charlie Mason meets beautiful Maison Lafitte hostess "Jackie" (whose real name is Abigail Manette). She tells him, in flashbacks, the story of the decline of her marriage with the charming but unbalanced Robert Manette. When her husband kills a bookie his controlling mother tries to cover it up. When he is caught she and her son blame Abigail. Abigail, feeling guilty when her husband receives a life sentence, becomes a bar hostess. Meanwhile, Robert escapes from jail and comes to see Abigail, but he is shot by police and dies in her arms, leaving her to start again with Charlie Mason.

Due to inclement weather, Lt. Charles Mason is forced to spend Christmas in New Orleans. Recently dumped by his girlfriend, the depressed Lieutenant falls in with Jackie Lamont, a singer who works at a nightclub and brothel. After attending midnight mass together, she tells her story to Charles. Her real name is Abigail and she fell in love with Robert Manette. After six months of happy married life, Robert is arrested for murder, but Abigail can't help loving her no-good husband.

A Bullet for Joey

Communist agents in Canada are spying on Dr. Carl Macklin, an atomic physicist whose knowledge they want. To kidnap him, Eric Hartman, the party's top man in Montreal, offers $100,000 to a deported American criminal, Joe Victor.
Joe's former flame, Joyce Geary, is blackmailed into helping with the plan. Police Inspector Leduc of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigates and ends up caring for Joyce, as she does for him.
A thug working for Victor kills the scientist's secretary after using her to gain information. Leduc is taken prisoner aboard a ship as Hartman and Victor attempt to take Dr. Macklin with them to Europe.
A plea is made by Leduc to the gangster Victor, who misses his native America, to do the right thing for a change and help stop the Communists. A shootout ensues between Victor and Hartman, who end up killing one another, but Joyce's innocence is proven to the satisfaction of Leduc and the law.

Montreal: the former well-known gangster Joey Victor is fetched from Europe, where he was deported to from USA. His shall kidnap the nuclear physicist Dr. Macklin and bring him behind the Iron Curtain. Joey reactivates his old gang, including the formerly attractive Joyce. She shall seduce the erotically inexperienced Macklin and lure him out of his closely protected quarters. But the FBI becomes suspicious...

City Across the River

Two members of a tough Brooklyn street gang accidentally kill one of their teachers.
Frank Cusack is a leading member of the Amboy Dukes teenage gang based in a slum-ridden area of Brooklyn. His activities with the gang ultimately lead from vandalism and hooliganism to complicity in the murder of a school teacher. His hopes—and those of his parents—for an escape from the bleakness of slum life are dashed by his willingness to accept the gang code of not informing to the police.

Brooklyn youth Frank Cusack, good son and brother by day, is a gang member by night. The Dukes, seemingly likable dead-end-kids, are dangerously involved with racketeer Gaggsy Steens. Despite the efforts of Franks's parents, he and pal Benny get involved in a serious crime. Can Stan Albert, head of the community center, prevent them from becoming full-time crooks?

Man Afraid

A minister (George Nader) accidentally kills a young burglar. The father of the burglar (Eduard Franz) sets out to revenge his son's death by threatening the minister's son.

A burglar is surprised by David and Lisa Collins in their son's room. In the struggle, Lisa's eyes are hurt and David throws an ornament, unintentionally killing the young thief. It's not easy for Reverend Collins to deal with the resulting publicity, his own conscience, or Lisa's temporary blindness. Meanwhile Carl Simmons, father of the dead burglar, begins to stalk the Collins' son Michael.

Lady in the Lake

Tired of the low pay of his profession, hard-boiled Los Angeles private detective Phillip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) submits a murder story to Kingsby Publications. He is invited to the publishers’ offices to discuss his work but soon realizes it is merely a ploy. A few days before Christmas, publishing executive Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) hires him to locate the wife of her boss, Derace Kingsby (Leon Ames).
One month earlier, Kingsby’s wife, Chrystal, had sent her husband a telegram saying she was heading to Mexico to divorce him and marry a man named Chris Lavery. But, according to Fromsett, Lavery says he hasn't seen Chrystal for two months; she's missing, and the telegram appears to be a fake. It becomes obvious to Marlowe that Fromsett wants her boss for herself (for his money, as she later admits).
Marlowe goes to see Lavery (Dick Simmons), who claims to be unaware of any trip to Mexico. A slip of the tongue by Lavery occurs, saying that Mrs. Kingsby WAS a beautiful woman before revising it to an "is." Lavery sucker-punches the detective. Marlowe wakes up in jail, where he is questioned by Captain Kane (Tom Tully) and a belligerent Lieutenant DeGarmot (Lloyd Nolan). Marlowe refuses to divulge anything about his case, so Kane warns him not to cause trouble and releases him.
Marlowe learns that a woman's body has been recovered from a lake owned by Kingsby and that Kingsby's caretaker was charged with the murder of his wife Muriel. Fromsett suspects that Chrystal is the real killer, as she and Muriel hated each other. Little Fawn Lake was also where Chrystal was last seen. Marlowe learns that Muriel was an alias for a woman named Mildred Havelend and that she was hiding from a tough cop, whose description fits DeGarmot.
Marlowe goes to call on Lavery again. Inside the unlocked house, he instead encounters Lavery's landlady, Mrs. Falbrook, holding a gun she claims to have just found. Upstairs, he finds Lavery dead in the shower, shot several times. He also finds a handkerchief with the monogram "A F".
Before calling the police, Marlowe goes to the publishing house to confront Fromsett, interrupting a Christmas party there. In private, she denies killing Lavery. Kingsby, learning that Fromsett had hired Marlowe to find Chrystal, tells her theirs will be strictly a business relationship from now on. A furious Fromsett fires the private eye. Marlowe immediately gets another job; Kingsby hires him to find his wife.
Marlowe proceeds to inform the police of Lavery's death. At the scene, he suggests that Muriel was hiding from DeGarmot. The two men scuffle. Kane separates them and takes Marlowe into custody, releasing him only after a surge of Christmas spirit.
Marlowe obtains more information on Muriel from a newspaper contact. It turns out that Muriel had been a suspect in the suspicious death of her previous employer's wife. The investigating detective, DeGarmot, ruled that death a suicide; the victim's parents strongly disagreed.
Marlowe finds the parents have been intimidated into keeping silent. His car is then run off the road by DeGarmot. Regaining consciousness after the crash, Marlowe manages to get to a telephone and call Fromsett for help. She takes him back to her apartment, where she claims that she has fallen in love with him. They spend Christmas Day together while he recovers from his injuries.
Kingsby receives a telegram from his wife, asking for money. Marlowe agrees to drop it off, as Kingsby is being followed by police detectives. Placing his life in Fromsett's hands, Marlowe instructs her to have the police follow him after ten minutes, following a trail of rice he will leave behind.
The woman Marlowe meets (Jayne Meadows), the one who asked for money from Kingsby, turns out to be Mildred Havelend, alias Mrs. Falbrook, alias Muriel. She is the one who killed Chrystal (the "lady in the lake"), as well her former employer's wife and Lavery.
DeGarmot was in love with Havelend and helped her cover up the first murder. Then she fled from him and married Kingsby's caretaker, Mr. Chess.
Haveland pulls a gun on Marlowe in her apartment. DeGarmot tracks them down, having overheard Fromsett speaking to Captain Kane and following Marlowe's trail of rice. DeGarmot plans to kill them both with Havelend's gun and stage it to look like she and Marlowe shot each other. DeGarmot then shoots a pleading Mildred several times. Captain Kane gets there just in time to gun down his own crooked cop. Marlowe and Fromsett decide to leave for New York City to start a life together.

The camera shows Phillip Marlowe's view from the first-person in this adaptation of Raymond Chandler's book. The detective is hired to find a publisher's wife, who is supposed to have run off to Mexico. But the case soon becomes much more complicated as people are murdered.

Mysterious Intruder

Edward Stillwell, the aged proprietor of a music store, hires private detective Don Gale (Dix) to find Elora Lund, a then 14-year-old who vanished seven years ago at the time her mother died. Stillwell can only pay $100, but hints mysteriously that finding Lund could make Gale a rich man.
A young woman claiming to be Elora Lund shows up at Stillwell's shop, supposedly in answer to his newspaper advertisement. Stillwell tells her that her mother gave him some "odds and ends" to sell; he discovered something very valuable among them, but refuses to give her any details until he telephones Gale. Meanwhile, Harry Pontos sneaks into the basement and finds a package marked as belonging to Lund. He grabs it, then stabs Stillwell to death and kidnaps "Elora Lund". Gale informs the reporters at the murder scene that the woman is not Lund. The news results in her release unharmed.
Gale goes to see her; her real name is Freda Hanson, and she is Gale's accomplice. From clues that Hanson is able to provide, Gale retraces her steps and finds the house occupied by Pontos. Finding Pontos drunk and passed out, he looks around, but just then, Police Detectives Taggart and Burns bang on the door. Pontos awakens, grabs a gun and a shootout ensues. Gale sneaks away, but is seen by a neighbor and loses a shoe in the process.
Taggart and Burns question Gale, inform him that Pontos is dead and return his shoe. When he refuses to cooperate, they arrest him, but release him a little later (hoping he will lead them somewhere). He goes to see Hanson and finally gets her to admit that what she is after is worth $200,000. When there is a knock on the door, he hides and finds a newspaper clipping indicating that a magnate has offered $100,000 each for two wax cylinder recordings legendary Swedish singer Jenny Lind made shortly before her death.
Meanwhile, the real Elora Lund goes to the police. Taggert and Burns send her to see Gale to try to find out what he knows. She remembers the recordings; Gale offers to secure them for 25% of their value. He persuades her to stay with his associate Rose Deming while he does so.
James Summers, the manager of the apartment building in which Hanson lives, finds her strangled body in her closet. The police figure Gale is guilty, as he was seen leaving her apartment around the time of the murder. Joan Hill, Gale's secretary, warns him he is a wanted man.
He heads to Stillwell's place, finding his neighbor and friend, Mr. Brown, dead too. Down in the basement, he sees Summers and an accomplice. They have found the recordings. Summers offers to cut Gale in, but Gale does not like what happened to Summers' other partners: Hanson and Pontos. A gunfight breaks out. Gale shoots Summers, grabs the recordings and flees. He telephones police headquarters and announces he has the recordings. When he hears someone coming after him, he fires. He is shot and killed ... by the police. Taggart notes that one of the shots has shattered the recordings.

The fifth entry in the Columbia series based on the CBS radio program, "The Whistler", opens with kindly old music store owner Edward Stillwell (Paul E. Burns) hiring private detective Don Gale (Richard Dix) to find a girl Stillwell hasn't seen in seven years. Gale sends Freida Hanson (Helen Mowery') to pose as the missing Elora Lund (Pamela Blake), and she learns that some items left by Elora's mother are now extremely valuable before Harry Pontos (Mike Mazurki) comes into the room and kills Stillwell. He also kidnaps Freida but releases her when Don announces she is an impostor. With Freida's help, Gale locates Pontos' apartment, who is shot down in a gun battle with the arriving police. Gale returns to his place but is arrested by detectives Taggart and Burns and jailed. The detectives later find the real Elora, who has been in a sanitarium recovering from an accident. Gale is released and Elora is sent by the detectives to see if he will disclose why Stillwell was looking for her. Gale, planning to cheat her, tells her what the secret treasure is. Gales disappears and becomes the object of a manhunt when he is wrongfully accused of killing Freida, who has been killed by James Summers, her apartment manager, who has also discovered the secret. Joan Hill, Gale's secretary, locates and warns him about the police. He tells her he is going to the record store to find some recordings made by Jenny Lind worth $200,000.

They Made Me a Killer

After his brother is killed in an accident, Tom Durling quits his job and drives across country. He gives an attractive girl a ride and is subsequently forced at gun point to be the driver in a bank robbery. During the crime another innocent man, Steve Reynolds, is involved and killed in the escape. After a high-speed chase, the car crashes and Durling is knocked unconscious. The bandits get away, the police arrest Durling and refuse to believe that he isn't one of the robbers.
Durling escapes the police then later teams with Reynolds' sister in an attempt to prove his innocence. The trail leads to a small roadside diner where the two end up finding the gang hiding out in the building's basement. They go undercover, she as a waitress and Durling joining the gang. In the end, they trick the criminals into confessing their crimes. Durling's reputation is saved, and the criminals, led by a Ma Barker-type mom, get shot up.

A young girl tries to prove a man innocent of robbery and murder charges.

Gilda


Just arrived in Argentina, small-time crooked gambler Johnny Farrell is saved from a gunman by sinister Ballin Mundson, who later makes Johnny his right-hand man. But their friendship based on mutual lack of scruples is strained when Mundson returns from a trip with a wife: the supremely desirable Gilda, whom Johnny once knew and learned to hate. The relationship of Johnny and Gilda, a battlefield of warring emotions, becomes even more bizarre after Mundson disappears...

The Naked City

In the late hours of a hot New York summer night, a pair of men subdue and kill Jean Dexter, an ex-model, by knocking her out with chloroform and drowning her in her bathtub. When one of the murderers, conscience-stricken, gets drunk, the other kills him, then lifts his body into the air and throws it into the East River.
Homicide Detective Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and his young associate, Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor), are assigned to Jean's case, which the medical examination has determined was murder, not an accident. Muldoon has been a homicide cop for 22 years; Halloran for three months. At the scene, the police interrogate Martha Swenson (Virginia Mullen), Jean's housekeeper, about Jean's friends, and she tells them about a "Mr. Henderson." They also discover a bottle of sleeping pills and her address book. Halloran questions the doctor who prescribed the pills, Lawrence Stoneman (House Jameson), and Ruth Morrison (Dorothy Hart), another model. Back at the police station, Muldoon questions Frank Niles (Howard Duff), who lies about everything, claiming only a business relationship with Jean and denying knowing Ruth, to whom he is engaged. The police quickly discover the truth behind many of his lies. Later, Muldoon deduces from the bruises on Jean's neck that she was killed by at least two men.
That evening, Jean's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Batory, from whom she had been estranged, arrive in New York to formally identify the body, and tell the detectives that they have no knowledge of Jean's acquaintances. The next morning, the detectives learn that Frank sold a gold cigarette case stolen from Stoneman, then purchased a one-way airline ticket to Mexico. They also discover that Jean's ring was stolen from the home of a wealthy Mrs. Hylton (Enid Markey). At Mrs. Hylton's Park Avenue apartment, the police learn that the ring actually belonged to her daughter, who, to their surprise, turns out to be Ruth. Learning that Ruth's engagement ring is also stolen property, Muldoon and Halloran take Ruth to Frank's apartment, where they coincidentally interrupt someone trying to murder him. The killer takes a shot at the cops and escapes onto the nearby elevated train. When questioned about the stolen jewelry, Frank claims that they were all presents from Jean, which reveals his true relationship with her, much to Ruth's chagrin. Frank is then arrested for the jewel thefts, but the murder case remains open.
Halloran learns that a body recovered from the East River, that of Peter Backalis (Walter Burke), a small-time burglar, died within hours of the Dexter murder and connects the two incidents. Muldoon, although skeptical, lets him pursue the lead and assigns two veteran detectives on the squad to help Halloran with the legwork. Through further methodical but tedious investigation, Halloran discovers that Backalis' accomplice on a jewelry store burglary was Willie Garzah (Ted de Corsia), a former wrestler with a penchant for playing the harmonica. While Halloran and his team canvass the Lower East Side of New York using an old publicity photograph of Garzah, Muldoon compels Frank Niles to identify Jean's mystery boyfriend. Dr. Stoneman is "Henderson". At Stoneman's office, Muldoon uses Frank to trap the married physician into confessing that he fell in love with Jean, only to learn that she and Frank were using him in order to rob his society friends. Frank then confesses that Garzah killed Jean and Backalis. Halloran and Muldoon, using different approaches, have come up with the same killer.
Meanwhile, Halloran finally locates Garzah and, pretending that Backalis is in the hospital, tries to trick Garzah to accompany him back to the hospital, but Garzah (knowing he killed Backalis) sees through the ruse. The ex-wrestler "rabbit punches" the rookie detective, momentarily knocking him unconscious. Garzah attempts to disappear in the crowded city, but as police descend upon the neighborhood, a panicked Garzah draws attention to himself when he shoots and kills a blind man's guide dog on the pedestrian walk of the Williamsburg Bridge. Garzah attempts to flee over the bridge but as police approach from both directions, he starts climbing one of the towers, and is shot and wounded. High on the tower, Garzah refuses to surrender, gunfire is exchanged, he is hit again and falls to his death.
As aerial and street shots of New York are shown, the narration concludes with the iconic line: "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

Amid a semi-documentary portrait of New York and its people, Jean Dexter, an attractive blonde model, is murdered in her apartment. Homicide detectives Dan Muldoon and Jimmy Halloran investigate. Suspicion falls on various shifty characters who all prove to have some connection with a string of apartment burglaries. Then a burglar is found dead who once had an elusive partner named Willie. The climax is a very rapid manhunt sequence. Filmed entirely on location in New York City.

Woman on the Run

As the film opens, a man, Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott), is walking his dog in the city at night. He witnesses a man in a car talking about a crime. The man then gets shot. But whoever shot that man then sees Frank and shoots at him. The shot misses, however, because it is mistakenly aimed at Frank's shadow. The killer then flees in the car.
When the police arrive it is explained that the shooting victim was going to testify in a court case against a gangster. Since Frank saw the shooter, the cops now want Frank to testify. They plan to take him into protective custody. But Frank, while the police inspector (Robert Keith) has momentarily turned away, gives police the slip, leaving his dog (named Rembrandt because his owner is a painter) behind. The police think he is running to escape possible retaliation from the mob. So they contact Frank's wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan) to solicit her help in finding him. But she suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage.
Later learning that her husband has a heart condition, Eleanor gets the needed medicine and goes looking for him, aided by a newspaperman, Danny Leggett (Dennis O'Keefe) who says he is looking for an exclusive story. The two conduct their own investigation, giving only limited aid to the police. But the police remain determined, since they need a trial witness. Eleanor is aided in her search by Frank's efforts to contact her. In a letter left with a mutual contact he gives her cryptic instructions on how they can secretly meet. The instructions require that she remember a significant event from their life together. But she has trouble doing so.
As the search continues it is gradually revealed to the audience that Danny the newspaperman is really the killer. He is simply using Eleanor to find Frank. Once Eleanor figures out the cryptic reference, she and Danny go to a beachside amusement park at night and there manage to locate him. Wanting time alone with Frank, ostensibly to get his newspaper story and pay Frank $1,000 for it, Danny puts Eleanor on the roller coaster. As she rides she suddenly realizes what Danny has really been up to. But she is trapped until the ride ends in what becomes the frantic climax of the film.
As Eleanor finally gets off the roller coaster, Danny is on the verge of killing Frank. The two fight and shots ring out. Eleanor breathlessly arrives on the scene to discover that the police inspector has just shot the killer. She rushes to her husband and the two embrace.

Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott), sole witness to a gangland murder, goes into hiding and is trailed by Police Inspector Ferris (Robert Keith), on the theory that Frank is trying to escape from possible retaliation. Frank's wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage. Aided by a newspaperman, Danny Leggett (Dennis O'Keefe), Eleanor sets out to locate her husband. The killer is also looking for him, and keeps close tabs on Eleanor.

Female on the Beach

Lynn Markham (Crawford) visits a beach house that once belonged to her dead husband. There, she meets real estate agent Amy Rawlinson (Jan Sterling) and Drummond "Drummy" Hall (Chandler), an attractive beach bum who wanders in and out of the house as though he owned it.
Lynn learns the house was once rented to Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn), an older woman whose cause of death (suicide, accident, or murder) remains undetermined. Lynn later discovers "Drummy" is the accomplice of card sharps Osgood and Queenie Sorenson (Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer), and that he heartlessly pursued Crandall in order to set her up for card games with the Sorensons. Lynn's physical attraction to Drummy is overpowering and she marries him. Events on their honeymoon lead Lynn to believe he murdered Eloise. It transpires, however, that Amy Rawlinson killed Crandall because she wanted Drummy for herself.

Lynn Markham moves into her late husband's beach house...the morning after former tenant Eloise Crandall fell (or was pushed) from the cliff. To her annoyance, Lynn finds both her real estate agent and Drummond Hall, her muscular beachcomber neighbor, making themselves quite at home. Lynn soon has no doubts of what her scheming neighbors are up to, but she finds Drummond's physical charms hard to resist. And she still doesn't know what really happened to Eloise.

Strange Illusion

An adolescent believes that his widowed mother's suitor may have murdered his father.

Paul, a young man whose father was once lieutenant Governor of California before his untimely death, has a strange, recurring dream in which his mother falls in love with a dangerous man (Brett Curtis), a dream which also contains the image of his father's death in an automobile accident under mysterious circumstances. Through the help of his friend, a psychiatrist, Paul realizes that his dream is coming true, and that his mother is falling under Curtis's influence. Curtis, in fact, is a homicidal maniac who lives as an out-patient at the sanitarium of the unscrupulous Dr. Muhlbach. When Curtis makes an attempt to marry Paul's mother, Paul intervenes, and after a series of events discovers the truth behind his dreams.

