Shakedown (1950)

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His Camera Was More Deadly Than a Gangster’s Gun! From Joseph Pevney, the acclaimed director of Because of You, Six Bridges to Cross, Foxfire, Female on the Beach and The Midnight Story, comes this thrilling tale of crime and celluloid. Two-bit press photographer Jack Early (Howard Duff, Woman in Hiding) is sent to snap a shot of notorious racketeer Nick Palmer (Brian Donlevy, The Great McGinty), who takes the unscrupulous shutterbug under his wing. Jack decides to bite the hand that feeds him and sets Nick and another crime boss (Lawrence Tierney, Prizzi’s Honor) against one another. All the while, he seduces—and manipulates—newspaperwoman Ellen Bennett (Peggy Dow, The Sleeping City) and Nick’s moll Nita (Anne Vernon, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Eventually, Jack must pay for his wicked ways, in this hard-hitting, double-crossing film noir with shadowy black-and-white photography by Irving Glassberg (Larceny).