We start with him in Toronto, where he's arrested and sent to prison. After a humiliating and sadistic episode with the warden Gerry escapes, makes it to New York, marries a nurse and starts a new crime wave in New Rochelle.

After picking up a new woman in Manhattan and hoping to start up a fur-stealing racket there, he barely escapes capture and hops a train to California, where he infiltrates the high society set of Beverly Hills.

More sex and more stealing and then, eventually, an impressive action sequence as Gerry tries to elude police officers who have surrounded the building he's in.

Since this movie is from 1950, you know he's not going to get away with it in the end, but it's impressively hardboiled and fast-paced, moving smoothly from crime to crime and keeping moralizing to a minimum.

Gerry isn't really sympathetic character but this isn't a movie about who people are as much as what people do. Brutality of one sort or another finds everybody in it, but the idea is to deliver excitement, not anguish.

William Lava's score does much to enhance the experience, as does the wonderfully shadowy photography by Sid Hickox.

Gerry wears a standard-issue black mask when he's on the job but Hickox has his face blocked by shadows a lot even when he's not working, suggesting his criminality is part of his true nature.