Plot
Convicted murderer "Turk" (Stephen McNally) escapes from police custody, crashing through a washroom window as a train pulls into Grand Central Terminal in New York. He telephones his former girlfriend, Broadway star Mida King (Patricia Dane), and threatens to kill her. She leaves her show between acts and hides in a private train car on a siding at the terminal, planning to leave town and marry her rich, high society fiance, David V. Henderson (Mark Daniels). However, her body is found by David and his ex-fiancee, Connie Furness (Cecilia Parker).
Police Inspector Gunther (Sam Levene) is called in to solve the crime. The doctor at the scene is unable to determine the cause of death. Turk is recaptured, and wisecracking private detective "Rocky" Custer (Van Heflin), whom Turk had hired, is also brought in, as he had helped his client evade the police. Other suspects are rounded up: Mida's greedy phony psychic stepfather Ramon (Roman Bohnen); her ex-husband Paul Rinehart (George Lynn), who works at the terminal; and her producer Frankie Ciro (Tom Conway). Also mixed in are Mida's maid, ex-burlesque singer Pearl Delroy (Connie Gilchrist) and her daughter "Baby" (Betty Wells), Mida's understudy. Then Roger Furness (Samuel S. Hinds), Connie's magnate father and chairman of the board of the railroad, shows up to guard his daughter's interests. Gunther gets each to tell what they know, with the unwelcome assistance of Rocky.
It turns out that the victim was a calculating gold digger. Like the inspiration of her stage name, King Midas, everything (or rather every man) she touched, turned to gold for her purse. She had used each successive boyfriend as a stepping stone, then discarded each in turn, in her climb up the social ladder. Landing millionaire David was to have been her crowning achievement, the fulfillment of her lifelong ambition. Frankie finds her, but she calms his anger at the prospect of losing the star of his expensive production by telling him that she plans to get a rich divorce settlement in about six months, more than enough to finance an even more lavish show. This conversation is overheard by David, giving him a motive. During the investigation, Ramon dies, apparently of a weak heart.
Rocky is able to solve the case and show that Ramon too had been murdered. The killer electrocuted Mida while she was in the shower of the locked railway car by connecting the plumbing to the electrified third rail. When he went to return the wiring to the storage locker, he was spotted by Ramon. The murderer paid Ramon off, but later got rid of the loose end with poison. Rocky identifies the man as Roger Furness, who breaks away and jumps aboard a departing train, but falls to his own death on the third rail.
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Johnny Eager is a 1941 American film noir directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Robert Taylor, Lana Turner and Van Heflin. Heflin won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film was one of many spoofed in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982).
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No Way Out is a 1950 American crime drama film noir directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Sidney Poitier in his film debut, alongside Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell and Stephen McNally. The film centers on an African American doctor who confronts the racism of a poor slum, after he treats a racist white criminal.
The Killers is a 1946 American film noir starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, and Sam Levene. Based in part on the 1927 short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway, it focuses on an insurance detective's investigation into the execution by two professional killers of a former boxer who was unresistant to his own murder. Directed by Robert Siodmak, it featured an uncredited John Huston and Richard Brooks co-writing the screenplay, which was credited to Anthony Veiller. As in many film noir, it is mostly told in flashback.
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Dressed to Kill is a 1941 American mystery film directed by Eugene Forde and starring Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes and Sheila Ryan. It was produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox, one of several films to feature the private detective Michael Shayne. The film is based on The Dead Take No Bows, a mystery novel by Richard Burke.
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The Raging Tide is a 1951 American film noir and crime film directed by George Sherman and starring Shelley Winters, Richard Conte, Stephen McNally, Charles Bickford and Alex Nicol. The screenplay was by Ernest K. Gann based on his 1950 novel Fiddler's Green.
Roman Aloys Bohnen was an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the films Of Mice and Men (1939), The Song of Bernadette (1943), and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
Kid Glove Killer is a 1942 American crime film, starring Van Heflin as a forensic scientist investigating the murder of a mayor. The B film, the feature-length directorial debut of Fred Zinnemann, was an expanded version of the 1938 Crime Does Not Pay short subject "They're Always Caught".
Mr. Soft Touch is a 1949 American film noir crime film directed by Gordon Douglas and Henry Levin and starring Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. The film is also known as House of Settlement.
I'll Name the Murderer is a 1936 American crime film produced by C.C. Burr for Puritan Pictures, directed by Raymond K. Johnson and starring Ralph Forbes, Marion Shilling and Malcolm McGregor. The story and screenplay was written by Phil Dunham with special dialogue by Edwin K. O'Brien, and the film was released January 27, 1936. This was Schilling's last film.
Scene of the Crime is a 1949 American film noir directed by Roy Rowland, starring Van Johnson, and featuring Gloria DeHaven, Arlene Dahl, and Tom Drake. The film's screenplay, by Charles Schnee, is based on a non-fiction article by John Bartlow Martin, "Smashing the Bookie Gang Marauders". It was the only property sold by Martin to be made into a film. Scene of the Crime was producer Harry Rapf's last film of his thirty-plus year career; he died of a heart attack a week after principal photography for the film began.
Fly-Away Baby is a 1937 American crime-mystery film starring Glenda Farrell as reporter Torchy Blane, along with her detective boyfriend, Steve McBride solving a murder and smuggling case during around-the-world flight.
Chicago Syndicate is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Fred F. Sears and starring Dennis O'Keefe and Abbe Lane.
