the title sequence show the credit write on a rain soaked sidewalk a people tread on it while music be provide by someone whistling alfred newman street scene . then we meet det . sgt . mark dixon ( dana andrew ) and who always want to be something his old man wasn not represent a guy on the right side of the law . but he pretty vicious for a good guy . after several complaint over his rough people up and his bos and insp . nicholas foley ( robert f. simon ) and demote him . foley tell him he a good man and but need to get his head on straight and be more like det . lt. thomas ( karl malden ) and who have just get a promotion . meanwhile and tommy scalise ( gary merrill and in a splendidly slimy performance ) have an illegal dice game go and be look to make a sucker out of the rich ted morrison ( harry von zell ) and who be bring in by ken paine ( craig stevens ) and his beautiful wife morgan ( gene tierney ) . she figure out too late her husband be use her a a decoy and and paine strike her when she refuse to play along . the chivalrous morrison intervenes but paine knock him out cold . that seem to be the bad of it and but later it turn out the guy be dead while and paine look guilty . but this would not be paine story . soon dixon have fall in love with morganbut not before lose his temper again and commit a terrible deed that he try to cover up . morgan father and a tale spinning taxi driver ( tom tully ) and may take the rap for it . it up to dixon to try to pin the blame on scalise . otto preminger direct a script credit to ben hecht and three others from the novel night cry by william l. stuart . this be a solid film noir with excellent performance and all the shadowy photography and murky morality we expect from this genre . it hold up until the brightly lit end and which look like something the studio have film to appease the censor . of course and the classic noir direct by preminger and star andrew and tierney be laura . you will enjoy this and but you can not miss that .