Police procedural film noir, shot entirely on location in New York (unusual at the time).

The story is quite straightforward — girl is murdered, police investigate — but it exists mainly as a structure on which to hang perspectives of the city, its criminals and its law enforcement (though in an infinitely less pretentious way than that sounds). The odd, character-less voice-over narration is more puzzling than any mystery in the plot.

The acting is sometimes stilted and some of the direction is actually a little flat, but there are enough enjoyable elements to cover for it — particularly the chance to see so much footage of a real city at this time.