The ensemble supporting cast features Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Cathy O'Donnell, and George Macready.

He maintains a particular contempt for Dr. Karl Schneider, who McLeod is convinced has performed illegal abortions that have resulted in patient deaths.

The detectives have arrested burglar Charley Gennini, who is revealed to be a psychopath with an extensive criminal record including murder and rape.

McLeod also books a young man named Arthur Kindred, who has admitted stealing money from his employer to try to impress the girl he loves.

Although the employer is sympathetic and wants to drop charges after he is repaid, McLeod refuses to release the remorseful Kindred, saying that leniency only leads to more crime.

McLeod, who had been worried about her apparent infertility, cannot stomach the thought that it was caused by her abortion by Schneider, especially when Sims hints that there may have been more lovers.

Suddenly, Gennini takes advantage of a distraction to steal an officer's revolver, and he fatally shoots McLeod before being disarmed.

Gerald Mohr portrayed Doc Holliday in the television series Maverick in the 1957 episode titled "The Quick and the Dead" starring James Garner and Marie Windsor.

Long on graphic demonstration of the sort of raffish traffic that flows through a squad-room of plainclothes detectives in a New York police station-house and considerably short on penetration into the lives of anyone on display...

In the performance of this business, every member of the cast rates a hand, with the possible exception of Eleanor Parker as the hero's wife, and she is really not to blame.

Kirk Douglas is so forceful and aggressive as the detective with a kink in his brain that the sweet and conventional distractions of Miss Parker as his wife appear quite tame.

The confined set of the police precinct is not simply a space where various characters observe each other and interact; it also contributes to the underlying thematic thrust and ultimately to the film's emotional power.

The staging of the individual scenes, which often plays on foreground-background relationships, is also augmented by Lee Garmes’ deep focus photography.