Ladd's Johnny Morrison returns from the war to find his party-girl wife (Doris Dowling) involved with a club-owner (the superb HowardDaSilva) married to Lake's Joyce Harwood though the tangled relationships become clear to these characters only later.
David Wayne brings a hectic pathos to the role of the psychopath at war with his own urges, and an iconic batch of character actors (including HowardDaSilva, Raymond Burr, Luther Adler, Norman Lloyd, Jim Backus, and Glenn Anders) incarnate with streetwise flair the officers of the law and the underworld posse trying to beat them to the killer.