Plot
Against the wishes of his law partners, lawyer Andrew Morton (Humphrey Bogart) takes the case of Nick Romano (John Derek), a troubled young man from the slums, partly because he himself came from the same slums, and partly because he feels guilty for botching the criminal trial of Nick's father years earlier (he was innocent). Nick is on trial for viciously killing a policeman point-blank and faces execution if convicted (the event is shown in a dark opening scene, but the killer's face is not seen).
Morton's strategy in the courtroom is to argue that slums breed criminals and that the community is partly to blame for crimes committed by the people who are forced to live in such miserable conditions. Through flashbacks, Morton demonstrates that Romano is more a victim of society than a natural-born killer. Yet, Morton's strategy does not have the desired result on the jury thanks to the badgering of District Attorney Kernan (George Macready). Morton, however, does manage to arouse sympathy for the plight of those trapped by birth and circumstance in a dead-end existence.
Read more about this topic: Knock On Any Door
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“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)