Jack Webb

On Saturday April 9, 1954, Miller Starkey, a small-time hood who works for West Coast mob second-in-command Max Edward Troy, is palling with Troy in a field when he sees hitman Chester Davitt appear over a nearby hill, sawed-off shotgun in hand. Starkey turns but is pushed by Troy and is promptly shot by Davitt. Sgt. Joe Friday, working out of the LAPD's Intelligence Division, gets information on the killing from forensic scientist Ray Pinker as Pinker briefs division chief James Hamilton and other officers. Hamilton suspects Troy and several of his close associates, such as Lee Reinhardt, Wesley Cannon, and Davitt, and after a meeting with chief of police W. H. Parker the detectives arrest Troy and his associates and a low floor of the Crown Regent Hotel is appropriated by the police to allow mass-interrogation. Davitt cannot be found but his wife Belle is brought in and angrilly calls out Friday and company, to no avail. Friday and his partner Frank Smith interrogate Max Troy, but after four hours they get nothing out of him. As he is taken to jail they get word that an eyewitness has been found. It is a museum curator named Jesse Quinn, who positively identifies Chester Davitt as being near the field at the time of the crime. Friday and Smith check out The Red Spot Grille, a restaurant secretly owned by Troy, and find nothing. They then decide to infiltrate a policewoman, Grace Downing, into the bar with a primitive wire to record conversation between Troy and his pals. After 36 hours habeus corpus kicks in and despite the reluctance of Deputy DA Adolph Alexander, Troy and his pals are released. Friday and Smith, however, get information from Roy Cleaver, an informant and jazz musician; he tells them that Starkey was seen weeks before his death sporting heavy bandaging from a beating. When Friday and Smith question Starkey's widow, she tearfully confirms this and gives Friday a copy of her husband's work book, a collection of gambling debtors. Friday and Smith question 22 of the names in the book but get no information until they question theatrical agent Fabian Gerard, who explains that he paid back a gambling debt but was confronted by other mob enforcers claiming he didn't; when he showed them proof they left him alone. Now the two officers figure out why Starkey was killed - he'd been pocketing debts he'd been collecting. They learn more from one of Grace Downing's recordings - Troy tells the bartender to take a package in his car's glove box and dispose of it; the bartender loaned the car to his nephew for a fishing trip and it won't be back until Wednesday, and he'll get rid of whatever this package is then. The police, however, find and arrest Chester Davitt, and a grand jury is summoned to investigate Troy and his pals. Friday goes to get Jesse Quinn, but Quinn suddenly gets cold feet about testifying; he is supoendaed but tells the grand jury nothing substantial. The jury members question Friday in their investigation, and in the end the jury votes not to indict Troy. Captain Hamilton angrilly orders Friday and Smith to tail Troy day and night, and they do, constantly searching him wherever he goes. It goes too far when they tail him to a gin game and several toughs attack Friday and Smith; the two policemen win the ensuing brawl but get a mild reprimand from Hamilton for it. More pressing is a call from Grace Downing that she found something from the bartender's car at The Red Spot, but that Troy may be on to her. Friday and Smith arrive at the bar and escort her safely out, then she takes them to the back alley where they find a box of shotgun shells - with four missing. Eventually a wiretap is installed at The Red Spot, and one of Troy's pals, Wesley Cannon, gets a call from Cleveland, and informs the bartender that Chester Davitt has been killed to keep him quiet - permanently - about the Starkey murder. Friday and Smith reluctantly confront Belle Davitt with the resulting tape, and she tearfully changes her tune, showing the officers the toolbox where Troy and Chester sawed off the shotgun barrel, and she reveals that the gun was thrown into Echo Park Lake. With a signed affidavit from Belle Davitt and the resulting evidence, DA Alexander has enough to convict Troy, but Troy pulls the ultimate fast one that ensures he'll never be arrested.

An underground gambling joint managed by Danny Haley (Charlton Heston) is closed down by a police raid led by wise cop Capt. Garvey (Dean Jagger) and Danny finds solace with girlfriend Fran Garland (Lizabeth Scott) who works as a night-club torch song singer. Danny is comfortable with Fran but still carries wounds from a former marriage and feels pressured to commit when he doesnt have a stable income. Danny meets former American soldier Arthur Winant (Don DeFore) while visiting Fran at her nightly club performance and Winant tags along with Danny to a late-night poker game. Playing cards with Dannys cohorts ulcerous Barney (Ed Begley, Sr.) and nasty-mouthed Augie (Jack Webb) isnt something Danny enjoys and when the crooked card players rook sucker Winant of five-thousand dollars that he was holding for his company theres a certain satisfaction that theyve made some money. When Winant is discovered the next morning hanged from the chandelier in his hotel room, the news lists it as suicide but Capt. Garvey believes something else is at play and questions Danny about it. When Barney is killed and hanged a general search goes out for the dead Arthur Winants reportedly crazy brother Sidney whom it is believed is tracking down all those responsible and exacting revenge for his brothers losing his money.

When ruthlessly dedicated postal inspector investigates the murder of a co-worker, he finds that the sole witness, a nun, has been targeted by the killers. Relentless postal inspector Al Goddard is set to Gary, Indiana, when another officer is murdered. He must find the nun who witnessed the murder, then infiltrate the gang by convincing them he is a postal inspector gone bad. —Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> The dead body of postal inspector Harry Gruber is discovered in La Porte, Indiana, the murderers Joe Regas and George Soderquist who killed him in his hotel room in Gary and subsequently dumped his body in La Porte. Detective Al Goddard with the US Postal Service is brought in from Chicago to lead the investigation. Goddard is seen as an efficient but cold and emotionless man who trusts no one in believing everyone having an angle, and thus in return has no friends. Goddard not only has to find the killers but gather enough evidence to hold up in court. In discovering a possible witness who saw the two men that night with who was told was their drunk friend (the dead Gruber), Goddard not only is able to identify and locate Soderquist but ultimately learns the case centers on an upcoming planned theft of a postal truck carrying $1 million. The theft would be carried out with the assistance of an inside man, Paul Ferrar, and the plan mastermined by Earl Boettiger. Goddard decides the best way to hold everyone to justice is to infiltrate the gang to complete the theft only to capture them with money in hand. Complicating matters for all concerned are two women: Dodie, Boettiger's loyal moll, who, in her position, can keep a close eye on Goddard; and arguably more important the witness, a nun, forthright Sister Augustine. While Regas knows she could identify Soderquist, he is uncertain if she could identify him - in reality, she not - and thus starts to obsess about eliminating her in protecting himself. Further complicating matters is what Sister Augustine believes is her saving grace, namely her guardian angel who will protect her. —Huggo

A paralyzed war vet tries to adjust to the world without the use of his limbs. A war wound has left ex-GI Ken paralyzed below the waist. In the hospital back home, he passes through an initial period of depression with the help of sympathetic Dr. Brock and his faithful fiancée Ellen. Ken's bitter isolation is also overcome with the help of his fellow patients, especially intelligent young cynic Norm, witty Leo, and serious young Angel. Soon Ken throws himself into the work of rehabilitation and after a long period of physical therapy even suspects that he could regain the use of his limbs. With his doctor's approval and help, he and Ellen marry, but on their wedding night both have misgivings about the marriage: the full realization of Ellen's new responsibilities frightens her and makes her more uncertain than ever, and Ken reverts to self-pity. They have a violent argument and he returns to the hospital. But his blazing anger finds no sympathy from his buddies, and after a surprising conversation with Dr. Brock, Ken realizes that he must return to his wife, with whom he must try to build his new life in spite of all the difficulties. —alfiehitchie During World War II, U.S. Army Lieutenant Ken Wilocek (Marlon Brando) is shot in the back by a sniper, injuring his spinal cord. In the years that follow, he faces a series of ongoing struggles in accepting his condition, in rehabilitation and in re-entering society. The film also focuses on the challenges facing Ken and Ellen (Teresa Wright), his fiancée, as individuals and as a couple, before and after they marry. It also highlights events in the lives of the other men in the Veterans Administration hospital, from a wedding celebration to a sudden death from meningitis. Dr. Brock (Everett Sloane) heads the team of doctors, nurses and physical therapists. Near the end of the film, when Ken accuses him of not understanding the difficulties threatening his marriage, Brock tells Ken about his own frustration: "I can never see a patient walk out of here, never. I can keep a man alive, but in his heart he feels I failed him. You feel that way, don't you? Took me a long time to get used to that." He reveals that he began specializing in paraplegia 18 years ago, after his wife was injured in a car accident. "Paraplegia was a new field, then. At least she didn't have to suffer too long . . . I'd give anything I've got to know that when I go home I'd find her there, waiting for me, in a wheelchair." He can't promise that everything will work out with Ellen, but if she loves Ken, and he behaves, chances are good. Anyway, he says, Ken has a lot of living to do, and he has to do it for himself. Ken drives to Ellen's parents' home, some distance from the hospital, takes out his wheelchair and goes up the steep brick front walk until a step blocks him. Ellen comes out. "You've come a long way," she says. "Do you want me to help you up the steps?" He replies, "Please." The film ends in a long shot of Ellen helping him to push his wheelchair into the house.