Londoner Harry Fabian is a second-rate con man looking for an angle. After years of putting up with Harry's schemes, his girlfriend, Mary, becomes fed up when he taps her for yet another loan.
Does Richard Widmark's brash physical energy in this movie remind anyone else of Klaus Kinski? Anyway, I watched the British cut with the 'happy' ending, which:
[…] doesn’t exist in the American version. Once the Strangler tosses Fabian’s corpse into the Thames, Kristo flicks a cigarette toward his body: The End. It’s among the bleakest endings ever conceived for a film noir or otherwise in this era.
— Brian Eggert (Deep Focus Review)
Regardless of whether it's one of the bleakest noirs, it's certainly one of my favourites.
