The Horatio Alger parable receives the full-on film noir treatment with the redoubtable Edmond O’Brien as a whip-smart telephone technician who moves up the ladder of a Syndicate gambling empire in Southern California until distracted by an inconveniently married Joanne Dru. Ripped from the headlines of the 1950 Kefauver Commission Hearings (Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce), this fast-moving picture is laden with location sequences filmed in Los Angeles, Hoover Dam, and Palm Springs. Co-starring Otto Kruger, Don Porter, Barry Kelley, and Dorothy Patrick.

Presented in 35mm courtesy of Sony Pictures.