Both Martin Rome (Richard Conte) and Vittorio Candella (Victor Mature) grow up tough on New York's Lower East Side as kids. But their lives take different paths - Candella makes him way up the police ranks, while Rome takes to a life of crime. A botched robbery leads to a cop killing by Rome. Candella seethes as the cocky Rome recuperates, and then escapes. Soon enough, fate has Rome tied up in another murder along with his motley accomplices (Shelley Winters and Tommy Cook). Candella tracks Rome throughout the murky, expressionist streets of New York, and Rome is in some kind of hell filled with one of the oddest assortments of ne'er-do-wells seen in a crime picture. The fate of the crook and the cop are inevitably intertwined in this excellent example of semi-realist film noir. Director Robert Siodmak (Criss-Cross, The Killers) is in career best form here.