​​​​​​​Susan Evans Grove

Beat cop Nick Brown roams the streets at night looking for information from the prostitutes and petty thieves he shares the night with. 

The opening scene of this film has us roaming through dark and seedy back alleys lined with the prostitutes and con men of Nick Brown’s nights. These are his co-workers, his informants and his friends. He lives more on their side of the law than on his own. They help him get the job done. These characters keep him safe but when he first meets Elizabeth Navan he knows she needs to be protected from them and led away from the streets. 

Cinematographer Lester Shamroy uses street lights and car lights to convey Navan’s innocence in the first half of the film. But as the plot twists and Navan seems to enter the dark underworld those lights are cut through and muted showing the characters descent into the darkness.