Richard Wallace directs a film noir that is more a character study than it is a puzzler. Unemployed mining engineer Mike Lambert (Ford) is driving a truck for a cheap outfit out of financial desperation. His truck careens out of control because the brakes don't work and it hits Jeff Cunningham's (Edgar Buchanan) car. The trucking company refuses to pay for the damages, but Mike pays him out of the meager $15 he receives for his driving services.
Stuck in this dumpy town without any money, he gets drunk in the local saloon where he's befriended by an extremely attractive and well-dressed waitress, Paula Craig (Janis Carter). Mike is suspicious of her because she looks too classy to be a waitress in such a dive. When Mike gets charged with reckless driving she pays his $50 fine and gets him a hotel room.
Paula plans to frame Mike for a crime because he closely resembles her married boyfriend, Steve Price (Sullivan), who because of his wife's family connections is the VP in the local bank. The plan is for Steve to embezzle $250,000, put it in a safety deposit box owned by Paula, and fake his death in a car accident as he will set the car on fire with Mike in it instead of him. Then the lovers will run off together. Janis Craig gives a very sexy and dangerous performance, which plays off very well against Glenn Ford's very earnest one of the good guy who can't get a lucky break. Even when he finds someone he could love she turns out to be poison, someone who was about to poison his coffee until she was reassured that he does not know something incriminating about her role in the crime. It was an entertaining B-film that ably caught how an honest but desperate man reacts after hooking up with a falsehearted woman. The good performances overcame the cheap production values and slight story.
