- A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.
- Amid a semi-documentary portrait of New York and its people, Jean Dexter, an attractive blonde model, is murdered in her apartment. Homicide detectives Dan Muldoon and Jimmy Halloran investigate. Suspicion falls on various shifty characters who all prove to have some connection with a string of apartment burglaries. Then a burglar is found dead who once had an elusive partner named Willie. The climax is a very rapid manhunt sequence. Filmed entirely on location in New York City.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
- Somewhere in New York's bustling post-world-war-two metropolis, the beautiful blonde and a former model, Jean Dexter, has been found dead in her apartment, drowned in the bathtub. With the news of her death spreading like wildfire across the city, Irish homicide Detective, Lt. Dan Muldoon, and his young protégé, the fledgeling Detective Jimmy Halloran, smell out clues all over Manhattan's tangled asphalt jungle, as the deceased's crafty boyfriend, Frank Niles, becomes the prime suspect. So many guilty lies and a string of unsolved jewellery robberies cloud Jean's mysterious case. Could the answer be hiding in New York's Lower East Side?—Nick Riganas
- Of the eight million stories in New York City, this story centers on Jean Dexter, a recently fired dress shop model who is found dead first thing one hot summer morning by her housekeeper Martha Swenson, Jean determined to have been rendered unconscious by chloroform before she was drowned alive in her apartment bathtub, her story which will touch several other individuals in the city either directly, indirectly or just in passing. Leading the investigation, veteran police detective, Lt. Dan Muldoon, and his team, including most specifically enthusiastic rookie Det. Jimmy Halloran, a young Long Island family man tasked with doing most of the legwork, follow up on the leads discovered in Jean's apartment and in questioning Swenson, those leads including a bottle of sleeping pills, she perhaps in a relationship with an only once seen older man named Philip Henderson, she having a friendship with a nicer younger man named Frank Niles, and a rare black star sapphire ring found on her person in addition to some other missing expensive but equally distinctive jewelry. In addition, Halloran questions those at the dress shop where she worked, there where he meets who was arguably Jean's best friend, fellow model Ruth Morrison. In bringing him in for questioning, Muldoon catches Niles in one lie after another, Muldoon who has to sift through if the reason for the lying is connected to the murder. Halloran tries to convince Muldoon that a dead body found floating in the East River, that death which occurred shortly after Jean's murder, seems like it is connected to this case. Beyond Muldoon sifting through Niles' lies, the key to the case seemingly is for them to find Philip Henderson, he and others who may be connected being able to hide among eight million others in the city, especially if they know the police are looking for them, discovering them which may rely on the effectiveness and efficiency of Halloran's legwork.—Huggo
- The New York City Police investigate a woman's murder, but this is far from a routine detective story. It was filmed on the streets of New York City with the actors playing their roles along with the people and the locations of the Big Apple.—<jbsports@li.net>
- The film begins with a wide shot of New York City as the voice of Producer Mark Hellinger introduces the story about to be told as different from any other. We are then introduced to several situations where night workers on the Grave Yard shift go through their mundane duties. A Radio Disc Jockey is shown spinning a record, wondering to himself in voice over if anyone is listening; a woman is shown washing the floors of the rotunda at the Roxy Theatre and in voice over muttering to herself. We move silently into the window of an apartment building and we see two men wrestling with another figure as we hear the men plan how to put the body in the bath tub, and the voice over explains that this is part of the city as well- a murder is being committed. Later we see the murderers sitting by a dock as one bemoans that he never killed anyone before as his partner hits him over the head and tosses the body into the water. We are then introduced to Barry Fitzgerald as Detective Lt. Dan Muldoon in his kitchen cooking an egg for breakfast and singing an Irish folk song. As Detective Lt. Dan Muldoon goes through his administrative activities at the police station he learns that Jean Dexter a young model has been discovered drowned in her bath tub in her Manhattan apartment, and he and a young novice Detective James Halloran (Don Taylor) report to the scene of the crime. Muldoon and Halloran as well as other detectives discover a shadowy lifestyle that the young model led, and many questions are raised such as how a woman with a minimal income came by the nice apartment and jewelry that she sported, and who killed her- an ex-lover, a burglar? As the detectives look back over the months leading up to Jean Dexters murder they come in contact with Philip Henderson a supposedly romantic connection, and with Frank Niles (Howard Duff), a slippery supposed Ivy Leaguer who seemingly cannot tell the truth. Muldoon demonstrates that Jean Dexter was killed by at least two men, one who held her and the other who put a cloth with chloroform over her mouth to render her unconscious before she was put into a filled bath tub. A closer look at the jewelry of the murdered woman uncovers the fact that she was the recipient of stolen goods, and it appears that Frank Niles himself had given her much of it and also has a good amount of hot loot in his possession. When Muldoon and Halloran go to question Niles at his apartment they interrupt one of the murderers as he is attempting to dispatch Niles. Muldoon and Halloran have a new suspect as they take Niles into custody and begin pumping more information from him about his activities and how he has come into possession of all the jewelry, and they also begin tracking down his possible accomplice, the man who tried to kill him. During their investigation which includes much paper work, leg work, and specific questioning of suspects and peripheral contacts, Muldoon and Halloran and their team of detectives build a case based on the facts that an involved criminal process was in operation that dealt in stolen jewelry. Muldoon and Halloran track down all the leaders and the final accomplice leads them on a chase through lower Manhattan onto the Williamsburg Bridge as a shoot out ensues in a dramatic climax to this sordid tale.
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