***SPOILERS*** We already see at the start of the movie that former insurance company lawyer, and now fencer for the underworld, Steve Keiver, Barry Sullivan, is in a heap of trouble with him running for his life from the law. Reflecting just what got him into this sorry mess Keiver goes into a long flashback to happier times when he was just a working slob making an honest living at the insurance company that he once worked for.
It was the girl of his dreams pretty Ellen Sayburn payed by former 1946 Miss Rheingold Beer Arlene Dhal who got Keiver into the bind that he finds himself in now. It was the greedy and never satisfied with her situation in life Ellen who really got Keiver started on the road to destruction as well as a trip to the Sing Sing electric chair! That's if the mob doesn't get him first. That's by Ellen wanting him, by hook or by crook, to make something of himself in the world of high finance. Telling Keiver to get ahead in life, if being a hard working and honest man wasn't good enough for her, he followed Ellen's advice asking his boss Henry Manston, Moroni Olsen, for a raise since he's expecting to marry Ellen and raise a family with her. Not getting a raise even though Manston said he so rightfully deserved it Keiver found out that Manston was secretly working with the mob not actively but in paying it off to get stolen goods back that his insurance company was libel for!
It's later when Keiver found out that his soon to be happily married bride Ellen had secretly dumped him for the rich and well connected Gordon Jassman, Dick Simmons, that he felt that not only was he made to look like a love-sick fool by Ellen but that his life as an honest as the days long lawyer made him unavailable to a gold digging women like her by having Ellen leave him for another, and much richer, man!
Seeing from his boss Mr. Manston just how profitable it is to be a fence-man for the mob Keiver decided to go solo as a fence-man himself. In no time at all Keiver using his friend and taxi driver Harry Dycker, Danny Daton, to get him business was "The Man" whom the mob dealt with in exchanging stolen furs jewelry as well as truckloads of expensive wine & booze for cash which Keiver got as much as a 20% commission for.
With him just being the middleman and not having anything to do with the robbery of the goods that he negotiated for Keiver was within he law with the cops not being able to lay a glove, or handcuffs, on him. It's when Ellen came back into his life together with her crook of a husband Gordon that things started to turn sour for Keiver! So sour that he ended up not only become a target for the mobsters that he worked for but the law in being implicated in the murder of a police officer Det. O'Bannion, Richard Anderson. It was Det. O'Bannion whom Keiver, in an effort to go straight, was about to turn evidence over to against his gangster boss the future, or so he wished, Olympic underwater swimming-he could hold his breath for almost five minutes- gold medalist Franko, Howard Petrie.
***SPOILERS*** We get back to the present, after the long flashback, with Keiver on the run from both the law and the mob as he's brought back to his boss Franko to face the music in a $850,000.00 stolen jewelry heist he was supposed to have fenced for him. It's then when all hell breaks loose with Kiver realizing that he's been set up, by guess who, in him being both implicated in the re-stolen-from Franko- stolen jewelry as well as the murder of Det. O'Bannion with not a shred of evidence on his part to prove it!
It was the girl of his dreams pretty Ellen Sayburn payed by former 1946 Miss Rheingold Beer Arlene Dhal who got Keiver into the bind that he finds himself in now. It was the greedy and never satisfied with her situation in life Ellen who really got Keiver started on the road to destruction as well as a trip to the Sing Sing electric chair! That's if the mob doesn't get him first. That's by Ellen wanting him, by hook or by crook, to make something of himself in the world of high finance. Telling Keiver to get ahead in life, if being a hard working and honest man wasn't good enough for her, he followed Ellen's advice asking his boss Henry Manston, Moroni Olsen, for a raise since he's expecting to marry Ellen and raise a family with her. Not getting a raise even though Manston said he so rightfully deserved it Keiver found out that Manston was secretly working with the mob not actively but in paying it off to get stolen goods back that his insurance company was libel for!
It's later when Keiver found out that his soon to be happily married bride Ellen had secretly dumped him for the rich and well connected Gordon Jassman, Dick Simmons, that he felt that not only was he made to look like a love-sick fool by Ellen but that his life as an honest as the days long lawyer made him unavailable to a gold digging women like her by having Ellen leave him for another, and much richer, man!
Seeing from his boss Mr. Manston just how profitable it is to be a fence-man for the mob Keiver decided to go solo as a fence-man himself. In no time at all Keiver using his friend and taxi driver Harry Dycker, Danny Daton, to get him business was "The Man" whom the mob dealt with in exchanging stolen furs jewelry as well as truckloads of expensive wine & booze for cash which Keiver got as much as a 20% commission for.
With him just being the middleman and not having anything to do with the robbery of the goods that he negotiated for Keiver was within he law with the cops not being able to lay a glove, or handcuffs, on him. It's when Ellen came back into his life together with her crook of a husband Gordon that things started to turn sour for Keiver! So sour that he ended up not only become a target for the mobsters that he worked for but the law in being implicated in the murder of a police officer Det. O'Bannion, Richard Anderson. It was Det. O'Bannion whom Keiver, in an effort to go straight, was about to turn evidence over to against his gangster boss the future, or so he wished, Olympic underwater swimming-he could hold his breath for almost five minutes- gold medalist Franko, Howard Petrie.
***SPOILERS*** We get back to the present, after the long flashback, with Keiver on the run from both the law and the mob as he's brought back to his boss Franko to face the music in a $850,000.00 stolen jewelry heist he was supposed to have fenced for him. It's then when all hell breaks loose with Kiver realizing that he's been set up, by guess who, in him being both implicated in the re-stolen-from Franko- stolen jewelry as well as the murder of Det. O'Bannion with not a shred of evidence on his part to prove it!