starring Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, William Conrad
directed by Robert Parrish
79 minutes
Rocky Mulloy (Dick Powell), fresh out of prison, tries to pick up his life where it left off. He was behind bars for five years. He tries to look after Nancy Morgan (Rhonda Fleming), the wife of his friend Danny, who is still behind bars.
Rocky figures he is owed a cut of the stolen money that got him sent to prison. He goes to Louis Castro (William Conrad) figuring that the bookie has the stolen loot hidden somewhere. Castro is less than accommodating and his attempt to "help" Rocky gets the ex-con picked up by the police for flashing lots of cash around town.
Rocky eventually finds out what's going on but not before at least one person is killed and his buddy winds up in the hospital in critical condition.
I saw this movie as part of the 2025 edition of the Noir City DC film festival.
This movie isn't perfect. It has flaws but I like it. I like the structure of it. It is noir through and through, in my book. The main character is reluctantly forced to play ball with warring parties (a policeman and a bookie) until he can figure out what happened to the missing money.
Notes
This is the second Dick Powell movie that I saw at this year's edition of Noir City DC. The other was Murder, My Sweet (1944). Dick Powell is only credited as an actor (in the credits) but according to IMDb and Letterboxd he also directed part of the movie. There is no mention of this fact on the Wikipedia page for this film.
This is the second film in which I've seen Rhonda Fleming at this year's edition of Noir City DC. The other was Out of the Past (1947). She played a smaller role in that film.
William Conrad has been in a few movies I have seen including The Killers (1946) and Body and Soul (1947).
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