A classic Otto Preminger noir flick that doesn’t stray too far from the established genre beats and tropes but does its thing masterfully, making perfect use of witty dialogue, a sufficiently intriguing murder mystery and an appropriately pessimistic worldview. Remember when cops were bastards? Uh, wait… so this is still a thing?!? Anyway, detective Mark McPherson is almost as cynical and ruthless in his methods as the high society types he’s having to deal with in an instance of the classic trope that you need a bastard to catch a bastard. For a film more than 70 years old i can accept that premise, although i certainly wouldn’t be this generous towards more recent works.