Plot
The criminal mastermind Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider is out of prison. Doc has a keen eye for detail, not to mention an eye for a pretty girl. He has been planning a “caper” – a jewel heist, outlined by a fellow inmate when they were “behind the walls” for the previous seven years. In an unnamed Midwest city, Doc goes to the betting parlor of a mid-level bookie called "Cobby." He requests to be put in touch with Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer. It is his understanding that Emmerich is the kind of man who can be approached with such operations and has the money to finance them. Emmerich attentively listens. Doc says he will need $50,000 to hire a team of men to carry out the burglary. Emmerich agrees on the condition that he (not one or more “fences”) should receive the jewels directly, pay off Doc, then be responsible for the disposal of the gems. Emmerich would therefore need to come up with an immediate $500,000 in cash to pay off Doc. Doc's hand-picked gang consists of Dix Handley, a hooligan from Kentucky who will provide the necessary muscle; Gus Minissi, a hunchbacked diner owner who is hired as the getaway driver, and Louie Ciavelli, a professional safecracker. Cobby will act as the go-between. Dix explains his ultimate goal to Doll Conovan, who is clearly in love with him. He sees the heist as a means to finance his dream of buying back the horse farm that his family lost during the Great Depression.
During the meticulously planned crime (an 11-minute sequence in the film), the criminals confidently carry out their work in a calm manner. Ciavelli pounds through a brick wall, breaks into the jewelry store, deactivates the door's alarm and lets in the other thieves, then heads to the main safe. With care, he slides flat on his back under the electric-eye system, picks the gate's lock, drills holes into the safe's door, gingerly opens a corked bottle of nitroglycerin (called "the soup" by the characters) and sets off a charge on the safe. Unfortunately for the crooks, the explosion sets off the alarms of several nearby businesses and brings the police to the scene more quickly than expected. A second unexpected mishap occurs when a security guard drops his gun after being struck by Dix, causing the gun to discharge and wound Ciavelli. The men get away and a police manhunt begins. Under increasing pressure from his commanding officer, a corrupt cop named Ditrich beats Cobby into confessing and fingering the other crooks involved.
Emmerich, meanwhile, double-crosses Doc and the thieves. He is broke and needs the money, not only for himself but to satisfy the expensive tastes of his young, gorgeous mistress, Angela Phinlay, who calls him "Uncle Lon." A tough private detective named Bob Brannom is willing to back Emmerich's betrayal for a 50-50 split. Doc had heard Emmerich was having financial difficulties and foresaw this possibility, which is why he brought Dix to the payoff. Dix is able to kill Brannom, but not without being seriously wounded himself. The cops put the squeeze on the gang. Cobby is jailed and so is Gus, who can't wait to get his hands on the snitch. Ciavelli dies at home from his gunshot wound. Doc and Dix are on the run. Emmerich is in his hideaway with his mistress, who is making big plans. The police arrive and force Angela, his alibi, to recant her previous story and tell the truth. Emmerich is caught red-handed. He asks for a moment to make a phone call, pulls a gun from his desk and shoots himself.
That leaves only Doc and Dix, who go their separate ways. Doc asks a taxi driver to drive him out of the city. Dix, in desperate need of medical attention, takes off in his own car with Doll going along. At a roadhouse having a bite to eat, Doc gives jukebox money to a pretty girl and lingers to watch her dance. The delay costs him dearly when two police officers recognize Doc as they peer into the diner and take him into custody as he departs. After narrowly escaping from a doctor who phoned the police, Dix makes it all the way to the gates of his beloved Kentucky horse farm. But he stumbles into the pasture, collapses and dies on the grassy plains of his home, surrounded by horses.
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)