This thrilling crime drama follows a part-time postal clerk who, in a moment of desperation, takes what he thinks is $200 but finds himself wanted by the police and the underworld for stealing a $30,000 intended blackmail payment. New York City postal worker Joe Norson (Farley Granger) wants nothing more than to provide a comfortable life for himself and his wife (Cathy O'Donnell), who is pregnant. Out of frustration he steals $30,000 from the shady lawyer Victor Backett (Edmon Ryan). However, the theft has higher stakes than Joe could have imagined: Backett extorted the money from Emil Lorrison (Paul Harvey), an innocent man whom he framed in a sex scandal and later murdered. Trying to hide the money from his wife, Joe gives it to his friend Nick Drumman (Edwin Max) for safekeeping. When Joe attempts to retrieve the money and return it to Backett, he finds himself caught up in a murderous web. A spectacular car chase brings a climax to the film, which was largely shot at various iconic New York locations, including Central Park, Stuyvesant Town, Battery Park, the Bellevue Hospital morgue, the Polyclinic maternity ward, Wall Street, Bowling Green Park, the Fulton Fish Market, the Queensboro Bridge and a Greenwich Village nightclub.