An aspiring reporter is the key witness at the murder trial of a young man accused of cutting a café owner's throat, and is soon accused of a similar crime himself.
Rising reporter Michael Ward is the key witness in the murder trial of young Joe Briggs, who is convicted on circumstantial evidence while swearing innocence. Michael's girl Jane believes in Joe and blames Michael, who (in a remarkable sequence) dreams he is himself convicted of murdering his nosy neighbor. Will his dream come true before Jane can find the real murderer?—Rod Crawford <[email protected]>
Reporter Michael Ward is promoted at his newspaper when he becomes the key witness in the murder trial of Joe Briggs, a young man that he had previously seen threatening the victim Nick in his coffee shop and later saw leaving the place and found Nick with a sliced neck. Joe swears innocence, but based on the circumstantial evidence he is convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. Michael's fiancée Jane feels uncomfortable with the sentence and believes that Joe might be innocent. Michael loses his confidence and feels remorse for his testimony accusing Joe. One night, Michael brings Jane to his room and his nosy neighbor Albert Meng brings the landlady to expel Jane from the boarding house. Michael threatens Meng and later he sees a stranger with bulging eyes on his floor that runs away from him. He has a weird nightmare and when he wakes up, he finds that Meng is murdered with a sliced neck similar to Nick. Michael calls the police and is arrested as prime suspect of both murders. Jane seeks out the stranger on the streets to save her fiancé.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Michael Ward is the key witness - the only eyewitness - for the prosecution in the trial of Joe Briggs, who is accused of killing Nick Narbajan, the proprietor of the coffee shop across the street from where Michael lives. As such, he, a reporter, gets a front page byline story at his newspaper, The New York Star, the story his first hand account, which includes his one and only previous encounter with the accused providing some grounding for motive but which does not include him actually having seen the accused kill the victim. With the high profile story comes a $12 raise, which will allow him enough financial security to marry his girlfriend Jane and move out of the rooming house where he lives. Everyone around him is certain Briggs will be convicted largely on his testimony. Although he is willing to testify if only to provide an account of what he saw, he, seeing the situation through terrified Jane's perspective, begins to question whether Briggs should be convicted if the strongest evidence against him is his testimony. Part of that self-questioning includes his own thoughts toward his next door neighbor, Alfred Meng, against who he has said to himself proverbially "I could kill him" after each of their many antagonistic encounters and whether he either truly meant it any of those times or could actually kill if provoked. Another part of that questioning is lately seeing in the neighborhood a strange looking man, whose behavior is suspicious enough potentially to be tied to murder.—Huggo
Newspaper reporter Michael Ward gives truthful but circumstantial evidence at the murder trial of pathetic loser Briggs. He is convicted despite crying his innocence, and the reporter begins to feel guilty for the key role he played in the trial. Haunted by memories of the poor man's pleas, he begins to wonder.—Ken Yousten <[email protected]>
Rising newspaper reporter Michael Ward (John McGuire) is the key witness at the trial of Joe Briggs (Elisha Cook Jr.) where he testifies that he saw the unfortunate Briggs fleeing the scene of a murder and previously heard him verbally threaten the victim, coffee shop owner Nick (Charles Judels). Based primarily on the circumstantial evidence of Michael's testimony, Briggs is convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair.
Shaken by the verdict and by his fiancée Jane's (Margaret Tallichet) intuition about Briggs's innocence, Michael returns to his room, where he begins to brood about the events that led up to Briggs' arrest. Lost in his thoughts, Michael recalls his first meeting with Albert Meng (Charles Halton), his loathsome neighbor, when he notices a sinister stranger lurking in the hallway and chases him from the rooming house.
After returning to his room, Michael detects that Meng's snoring has ceased, and begins to fantasize that his neighbor has been murdered and that he will be convicted of the crime on circumstantial evidence. Michael's paranoia continues in his dreams, and he awakens to find that his nightmare has come true and that Meng's throat has been slit. Michael notes the similarities between the murder of Meng and Nick and surmises that the same person must have committed both, which would exonerate the currently jailed Briggs.
Jane convinces him to report the murder to the police, but the district attorney (Charles Waldron) finds Michael's presence at the scene of both murders suspicious and he is taken into custody.
Realizing that the only way to prove Michael's innocence is to find the stranger, Jane begins to search for the man. She finds him feeding a stray dog and learns that he has escaped from an insane asylum. Thinking that Jane has come to take him back, the stranger begins to chase her across the street but is hit by an oncoming truck before he can harm her. Before dying, the stranger confesses to the murders, thus exonerating both Michael and Briggs of the crimes.
