Plot
The film opens with Bernard Herrmann's music, played over the both the RKO logo and then the title credits as the camera cruises down a dark city street. The stark nighttime scenery immediately establishes a noir atmosphere.
The police officers are getting ready for a day's work and head to the squad room. It is announced that it has been two weeks since the killing of a cop and the culprit is still on the loose. Detective Jim Wilson and his partner, acting on a tip, visit Myrna Bowers. Her very abusive boyfriend, Bernie Tucker, is supposed to be a partner of the suspected murderers.
Jim convinces Myrna to reveal Bernie's hideout, and after he tracks Bernie down, he beats him into betraying his partners. Although Jim's actions lead to the arrest of the killers, his superior, Capt. Brawley, cautions him to take it easy. Later, while on patrol, the detectives hear a woman scream and discover Myrna being beaten by two thugs.
Jim grabs one of the men and starts to rough him up. The next day, Brawley yells at Jim that he is becoming a liability to the department and assigns him to assist in the investigation of a young woman's murder in the rural north.
Jim Wilson has lost control, and says after he's restrained by his partner from beating up a suspect:
- What kind of job is this, anyway? Garbage, that's all we handle, garbage!
In the second act, Wilson is sent up north to cool out. "Siberia," he wryly notes. Though he is given a job similar to what he has left behind in the city—a murder investigation—Wilson's exile to the wintry countryside marks the beginning of his journey of redemption. Following a pursuit of the killer, Wilson is brought together with a blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), the sister of the fugitive. In the brief final act, Wilson's redemption is a foregone conclusion, but it is his journey toward it that matters most: Wilson has made his way on dangerous ground.
Read more about this topic: On Dangerous Ground
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“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
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And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
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—James Thurber (1894–1961)