Tough-talking crime drama convoluted with bad guys. Zachary Scott plays a rather naïve New York lawyer covering tracks for his girlfriend, a double-crosser in-cahoots with mobsters who's also involved in the killing of a paid witness in a criminal trial; he's framed for the murder and takes it on the lam, meeting a lovestruck librarian along the way. Virginia Mayo's devious Flaxy Martin takes a backseat to all the low-life male characters in the picture (who amusingly refer to each other as "Baby" and "Sweetheart"), and even runs a distant second to Dorothy Malone as the nice girl who believes in happy endings. Malone helps ground the heady proceedings in a form of movie-reality, even though the Warner Bros. back lot looks terribly phony and the hotheads who dot the supporting cast overact shamelessly. ** from ****