Lawyer
Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.
Messenger
A young, white teacher is assigned to an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina populated mostly by poor black families. He finds that the basically illiterate, neglected children there know so little of the world outside their island.
Interviewee on Street
Tracy Fleming is a widowed police officer, with a young son, who has risen to the role of plainclothes operative. After six women have been raped and killed, Fleming agrees to go undercover in an effort to make herself a target for the killer. The climax places her in a life-and-death struggle with the killer.
Dice Player
An amnesiac wanders the streets of Manhattan, trying to solve the mystery of who he is.
Marvin
A lonely Ohio spinster hopes to find romance when she travels to New York City for a postmasters' convention.
Hauser (uncredited)
An adulterous couple is accused of murder after the woman's husband is shot and killed during a scuffle. A high-profile court case tells the story.
Reverend Conway (Uncredited)
After being shown what hypnotism can do, a doctor starts to study it in depth. When he experiments on a friend's wife, she regresses into an early life, that of Bridey Murphy.
Mr. Foster (uncredited)
Cowboys Beauregard Decker and Virgil Blessing attend a rodeo in Phoenix, where Decker falls in love with beautiful cafe singer Cherie. He wants to take Cherie back to his native Montana and marry her, but she dreams of traveling to Hollywood and becoming famous. When she resists his advances, Decker forces Cherie onto the bus back to Montana with him, but, when the bus makes an unscheduled stop due to bad weather, the tables are turned.
Judge (uncredited)
The story of boxer Rocky Graziano's rise from juvenile delinquent to world champ.
Roy Carver
This titillating bit of pulp sensationalism was the last in a string of "B" films that Cleo Moore starred in at Columbia. Moore plays Lila Crane, an ambitious clip-joint floozie turned photographer with flexible morals and a penchant for fast money.
Waxie
Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgement. She encourages their affair but then quickly marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). To deflect suspicion of the affair, Steve Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery.
Wilson
Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?
