'Doc' Penny and two other members of his gang have recently broken out of San Quentin. In the process of robbing a gasoline station for "eatin' money" a police officer is killed and one of the gang members is wounded. A city-wide search ensues, led by hard-nosed detective Sims. He orders records searched in an effort to determine if there is an ex-con in the vicinity of the thugs' abandoned vehicle who might give them shelter.
Meanwhile, the phone rings in the middle of the night at Steve Lacy's home. Lacy, two years out of San Quentin, has gone straight, married, has a steady job. He answers, someone asks for him, then hangs up. Regrettably, he regularly receives unwanted phone calls from ex-cons who pass through town and try to solicit money or other help from him. He and his wife Ellen assume this one is just another.
Lacy's name turns up in Lieutenant Sims' search. Despite Lacy leading an exemplary life since being out of the joint, Sims feels he is a likely candidate for the escapees to seek out and has an underling call him. When the phone rings again Steve and Ellen are sure it is yet another former prisoner, and she persuades him to not pick up. The lack of an answer only confirms Sims's suspicions, and the detective sets out to check on him personally.
Before Sims can get there Gat Morgan, the wounded man, knocks at Lacy's door. The escapee has already summoned a disreputable, alcoholic former doctor now working as a veterinarian, Otto Hessler, whom both men knew in prison. Lacy demands Morgan leave, but he says he is "hurt bad" and cannot move. Shortly after he says this, Gat dies. The doctor arrives, confirms Gat's dead, grabs his fee from the dead man's jacket, and leaves. Lacy realizes that the other two escapees, Penny and Hastings, will likely arrive soon. He hesitates to call the police, believing they won't believe he's not involved, but Ellen prevails on him to phone his parole officer. Just as Lacy makes the call, Sims arrives. He relentlessly grills Lacy, espousing his "once a crook, always a crook" dogma, then takes him to jail, where he threatens him with fresh charges if he does not help catch Penny and Hastings. Knowing the repercussions of finking, Lacy refuses to cooperate; after three days he is finally released.
When Steve and Ellen return home, Penny and Hastings turn up and impose themselves. Fearing for Ellen's safety, Lacy resigns himself to hiding the two men for "a couple of days." Meanwhile, Sims visits Hessler and persuades him to go to Lacy's to ascertain if he has heard, or expects to hear, from his old prison mates. The veterinarian does what he is told and happens to overhear men's voices in the apartment, though he does not see anyone other than Lacy. After Hessler is shaken up by Lacy and leaves, Penny has Hastings tail the doctor to the veterinary hospital. Before Hessler can call Sims to report what happened, Hastings murders him, but the killing is noisy and alerts a passer-by, who summons the police.
Penny lays out the details of his plan to rob a bank. Lacy initially refuses to take part in the heist, but Hastings returns and explains that he had to abandon Lacy's car near the hospital to evade the police; with the car certain to be found and used to link Lacy with Hessler's murder, Penny notes that Lacy no longer has any choice but cooperate. The group departs the apartment to prepare for the bank job. As predicted, the car is soon found, and Sims issues an all-points bulletin for Lacey on the charge of murder.
Steve, Ellen, and the Penny trio rendezvous with two other thugs at a hideout. Lacy is to be the stick-up's getaway driver. To ensure his compliance, Ellen is held hostage by one of the thugs, a towering lecher named Johnny Haslett, who will kill her if the robbery goes wrong. If he can keep his hands off her that long. When the gang pulls the job, things go badly wrong. Penny is shot dead, and the other robbers are killed or captured. Lacy takes off for the hideout, with Sims in determined but controlled pursuit. Once there, Lacy springs into a fistfight with Johnny; Sims catches up at its knock-down - drag-out climax.
Sims says he'll book Lacy himself. Somberly riding downtown with Ellen, Steve is convinced he will be sent back to prison. However, Sims reveals that the police found the note that he left in his medicine cabinet alerting them of the robbery and giving them time to staff the entire bank with police officers. The detective then tersely lectures Steve about how he endangered both he and his wife's lives by not informing the police about Penny and Hastings at the earliest opportunity, pointing out that the note could easily have been missed or misunderstood. He barks, "Next time, Lacey, call me...you got trouble, you need help, call me!" To the couple's shock and relief, Sims drops them off outside City Hall and tells them to scram for home before he changes his mind. A wave of humanity sweeps over Sims. He fights it off.
Location shooting at downtown Los Angeles' Wall Street in Crime Wave
Much of the film was shot on location in Los Angeles and in nearby Burbank and Glendale. At least one 1952 location, Sawyer's Pet Hospital at the corner of San Fernando Road and Alma Street in Glendale, is still standing and still a pet hospital, albeit with a different name.[when?] Several locations seen onscreen, like the Bank of America on the southwest corner of Brand Boulevard and Broadway in Glendale (where the film's big robbery attempt takes place), as well as the distinctive dental building across Brand Boulevard, have been torn down and replaced.
The final chase scene from the bank in Glendale to Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles, though edited, follows the actual route, including Brand Boulevard and the Glendale Boulevard fork on the Hyperion Viaduct, until Steve Lacey reaches the house (possibly on Maple Street, just east of Los Angeles Street in the Chinatown district) where the crazed Johnny Haslett is holding Lacey's wife. The gas station in the film's opening scene, on Wall Street just south of East 3rd Street, near Boyd Street, has since been demolished. Other specific downtown Los Angeles locations include Los Angeles Union Station and the Los Angeles City Hall (including interiors of the Homicide Bureau). The final scene, where Lt. Sims sends Steve and Ellen home, was shot on the 200 block of North Main Street, with Sterling Hayden leaning against the side of the City Hall Building.
Release
Crime Wave was first released in Italy and Britain in 1953. It premiered in the U.S. on January 12, 1954 in New York City.[3]
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