Detective Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas), whose violent criminal father drove his mother to insanity, nurtures a lifelong hatred of lawbreakers and believes that they are being let off too lightly. He maintains a particular contempt for Dr. Karl Schneider (George Macready), wanted for murder in connection with his work as an illegal abortionist.

Schneider’s assistant (Gladys George) is ready to implicate him in a police line-up, but Schneider has bribed her not to pick him out, to McLeod’s fury. Another chance to establish Schneider’s guilt is missed when a victim dies in hospital before McLeod can get him there for identification. Schneider boasts that he’s got sensitive knowledge about McLeod, who finally explodes in anger and brutally attacks him, requiring McLeod’s colleague Monaghan (Horace McMahon) to escort him to the hospital in an ambulance. Schneider, half-conscious, mentions the name Giacoppetti, in connection with a woman supposedly linked with McLeod.

When Schneider’s lawyer Sims (Warner Anderson) arrives to protest the incident, he inadvertently lets slip that the woman is McLeod’s wife Mary (Eleanor Parker), and Monaghan interviews her in private, to investigate the connection, which she denies, until Giacoppetti (Gerald Mohr) walks in and greets her by name.

Mary is reduced to confessing to her husband that she had become pregnant by Giacoppetti. McLeod had worried about her apparent infertility, and now cannot stomach the thought that it was caused by her abortion by Schneider, especially when Sims hints that there may have been more lovers. But at that moment, McLeod is fatally shot by a repeat offender (Joseph Wiseman) who has taken advantage of a distraction to grab a revolver from another cop. McLeod asks his wife’s forgiveness with his dying words. The local paper praises McLeod for dying "in the line of duty".
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== osoby ==			== profese ==
	William Wyler		Režie
	William Wyler		Producent

cena	festival	ročník	osoba	nominace/cena
TOP 10 filmù	National Board of Review	23 (1951)	William Wyler	5. místo
Význačný režijní úspěch ve filmech	Ceny cechu Amerických režisérů	4 (1951)	William Wyler	nominace
Nejlepší režisér	Oscar (Cena Akademie)	24 (1951)	William Wyler	nominace
Nejlepší film z libovolného zdroje	BAFTA	5 (1951)	William Wyler	nominace
Nejlepší film (drama)	Zlatý Globus	9 (1951)	William Wyler	nominace