The town of Chattsburg is under the thumb of mob bosses and police corruption, but a new mayor and D.A. were just elected vowing to give the crooks the bum's rush. The guy who worked the airwaves in their support, Gerald Ladimer (Lee Bowman), is in the mob's pocket, and upon realizing these guys are actually serious, alerts the mobs.
The D.A. shortly turns up dead in a lake, and Ladimer is tabbed as "special investigator" into the crime. It's really police forensic scientist George MacKay (Van Heflin), and his assistant Jane (Marsha Hunt) who pull together the evidence to find the (fall) guy responsible. In the aftermath, when the mayor tells Ladimer he got a call from an insurance company about a policy Ladimer took out, which involved a down payment the guy shouldn't have, Ladimer plants a bomb under the mayor's car.
My dad pointed out it's bizarre Ladimer is supposed to be a lawyer, but was apparently a) broke when he started stumping for the mayor, and b) not only can make bombs, but can successfully wire them into a car's starter. Clearly he went into the wrong line of work. Should have been either a campaign manager or a demolitions expert.
Most of the movie is a cat-and-mouse of MacKay and Jane trying to use the forensic evidence to help find the killer, while Ladimer romances Jane as a way to keep track of what they're trying. So she mentions they used a spectrograph on the bomb parts to conclude the killer used gunpowder from .38 bullets, and MacKay's going to check under the fingernails of every person the company has record of buying them over the last 6 months. Cue a scene of Ladimer furiously scrubbing under his nails.
My big takeaway from the movie was hygiene was at premium in the '40s. One of the other tests was for fibers from the burlap sack the killer laid on while attaching the bomb, in people's hairs. This is at least several days after the killing, but apparently people aren't washing their hair much. Also, it's funny to watch people handle evidence with no regard for fingerprints or contamination. Nobody wears gloves, and George and Jane both smoke all the time in their lab.
Jane is established as a scientist in her own right, with a Master's degree in Chemistry. She runs tests of her own, and ultimately concludes Ladimer is the killer separately from MacKay, based on a possible lead she'd been pursuing. Hunt plays Jane as smart, but struggling with whether she really wants to do this or not. Which I think is society telling her its not a proper job for a woman, though no one in the movie ever says that. While she's happy to go on dates with Ladimer, or even consider marriage, she insists she couldn't consider until she helps solve this case, so clearly the work (and MacKay) mean a lot to her.
Heflin makes MacKay playful in a way that tries to maintain distance between he and Jane. He always bums cigs off her, and always expects her to light his. It's banter, but maybe a little dickish? He's the uptight scientist type, bad with feelings and all that.
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