otto preminger and complete a noir cycle at twentieth century fox and reunite his laura lead for this stark and gritty detective drama . dana andrew again portray a cop and but this time he harden and cynical and have be accuse of police brutality by his superior you do not hate hood and you like to beat them up . mark dixon ( andrew ) despise criminal and a his own father be a crook . he doesn not want to be sandy dixon kid so he become a policeman and but his method be harsh and hat . one night and investigate a murder and he unknowingly punch a suspect and ken paine ( craig stevens ) so hard that it kill him . a shaken dixon do his best to cover it up and intend to frame a hated thug and scalise ( gary merrill ) for the crime . however and the blame fall on paine father in law and jiggs taylor ( tom tully ) and whose daughter and department store model morgan taylor ( tierney ) be estrange from her husband but keep get draw into his gamble scheme . paine have slap his wife and enrage her father and who do show up at his son in law apartment and but not until dixon have depart with the body . with no good suspect and jiggs be arrest and charge . riddle with guilt and mark fall for morgan and offer money for an attorney . he decide to take on scalise anyway but leave a letter to be give to the department in the event of his death and confess everything . in the end and he can not live with the knowledge with what he have do and and he permit the letter to be read by his superior and by morgan . despite all the tragic circumstance and morgan profess her love for mark and will wait for him . it be great to find this film on dvd and after so many year of televised obscurity . eddie mueller and a film noir historian and provide the commentary and do a good job and but i find his assertion that audience wouldn not have catch the significance of the casting of the two lead and since laura have be make six year earlier . in that respect and he be mistake because they have appear in the iron curtain two year prior to wtse and the film be a box office success . andrew and tierney be fabulous together and and ruth donnelly be tremendous comic relief a restaurant owner martha and fan the flame between the detective and the dame . the night cityscape give the film an air of menace . gary merrill be great a the low life scalise and who have a criminal past with dixon dad ( your father like me and he taunt mark ) . karl malden and a young neville brand be terrific also . and tom tully be just touching and funny a morgan unjustly accuse pop . a watchable film noir with a fantastic cast .