Directed by Otto Preminger • 1950 • United States
Starring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill

Ben Hecht’s hard-bitten dialogue, Otto Preminger’s morally ambiguous direction, and one of Dana Andrews’s finest performances come together in this dark, brooding procedural. New York City cop Mark Dixon (Andrews) is already in trouble with his superiors for his brutal tactics when he accidentally kills a murder suspect. To protect himself, he decides to cover up the crime and pin the killing on a racketeer (Gary Merrill)—a situation that grows complicated when the father of the woman (Gene Tierney) Dixon loves is implicated as a suspect.