frank lovejoy be a veteran who never be send overseas during the war . he can not find a job to support his wife ( kathleen ryan ) and little boy . angry and embittered and and perhaps a little guilty and he fall in with bad guy lloyd bridge who sport platinum cuff link and seem to be enjoy himself all over the little california town . bridge offer lovejoy a job a his wheel man . just a couple of minor stick ups and nothing serious . but the robbery escalate into the kidnapping of a college boy from a rich family . bridge and an envious psychopath and kill the kid out of spite . both bridge and lovejoy be catch and jail but several thousand people break into the jail and beat the men and and pass them outside overhead like serve platter where they meet vigilante justice . i haven not see it since i be a kid but the memory of that climactic collective murder still make me wince . it impossible to comment on the performance and or on much else for that matter and after the passage of so many year but unless my brain have turn to tofu and i be compel to recommend the film . it be make at the height of the anti red hysteria in hollywood and a time when subliminal pro communist message be be read into cinematic trifle . and the advertising campaign that accompany this release seem almost to goad the audience into mindless mob action . get in on the ground floor of the explosive rage for justice . that sort of thing . in other word and hang the red . it be completely at odds with the message of the movie itself and which be that ordinary guy can get suck up by circumstance and find themselves suffer the same fate a those who be truly evil . oh and mob can be dangerous . ( if youre a social psychologist and think risky shift . ) out of all the simple black and white crime melodrama that appear in the post war period and this be one of the few that have me by the lapel . base on a real incident in 1930s san jose and california . if it show up and be sure to catch it .