This is a detective film noir classic, complete with downtrodden detective and a sense of smoky mystique hanging in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife and it would stay cut. The story strolls along while the actors chew the scenery and the audience forgets itself for the duration. It manages to tackle the tawdry subsurface dealings of the rich and famous with dignity, without stooping to the sleaze of its ‘70s counterparts. The dialogue, acting, and overall filmmaking here is good, but the main draw here is the atmosphere that mesmerizes as only the noir genre can.

Closest comparison: It’s like The Maltese Falcon (1941) by way of Dark Passage (1947).

Setting: Noir
Plot: Detective
Tone: Noir