Academy award-winning character actor Broderick Crawford has played a variety of characters throughout his career, both honest and dishonest, on the right side of the law and on the crooked side of it. in this intriguing crime drama with three different stories going on, Crawford gives a commanding performance as an honest cop who must take over the cases of his assassinated partner and finds himself involved in some sinister activities. There are three women here, all involved in the individual cases but more as victims, and not your typical femme fatale. Ruth Roman scores as a beautiful Widow who is being blackmailed for insurance money and threatened with the safety of her daughter. Martha Hyer is excellent as the girlfriend of an escaped convict who is questioned by the police and seems intent in cooperating until her boyfriend shows up. Then, there is the deaf Marissa Pavan, a key witness in the search for a nasty mobster. One of the three men was responsible for the death of Crawford's partner, and he is determined to solve these cases to find out who ruthlessly gunned the partner down.
Great location photography in Los Angeles culminates with a gripping finale just below the Hollywood sign. The writers cleverly hide whom the partner's killer is, and don't let on as to the identities of the other bad guys as well until these plot lines wrap up in gripping violent manners. William Johnstone, Max Showalter, Claude Akins, Kenneth Tobbey and Gene Reynolds provide outstanding support, and the intelligence screenplay keeps the audience on the edge of their seat as each of these stories unfolds. Crawford finds an important lesson as a cop, that when you help someone avoid becoming a victim of crime, you usually find, like I state in my tagline, that a job truly is satisfying when you do indeed help decent people.
Great location photography in Los Angeles culminates with a gripping finale just below the Hollywood sign. The writers cleverly hide whom the partner's killer is, and don't let on as to the identities of the other bad guys as well until these plot lines wrap up in gripping violent manners. William Johnstone, Max Showalter, Claude Akins, Kenneth Tobbey and Gene Reynolds provide outstanding support, and the intelligence screenplay keeps the audience on the edge of their seat as each of these stories unfolds. Crawford finds an important lesson as a cop, that when you help someone avoid becoming a victim of crime, you usually find, like I state in my tagline, that a job truly is satisfying when you do indeed help decent people.