Get Outta Town

After twenty-four-year-old Tommy Olesen delivers a mechanical device to two mobsters, he is killed and his death made to look like an accident. A few hours later, at a Los Angeles dock, Tommy's older brother Kelly reads a newspaper account of Tommy's death. The story also mentions Tommy's relationship to Kelly, one of the nation's best safecrackers, who disappeared for three years after being arrested seventeen times without ever being convicted. Later, on the steps of City Hall, Kelly runs into his old nemesis, Sgt. Wills, who asks him why he has returned. Kelly explains about Tommy and, at Wills's insistence, promises he will leave town after Tommy's funeral. Wills explains to his assistant, Jim Kemper, that Rico Lizzarri and Tony Bunch were partners of Kelly's, but that he was never able to convict them. Kelly then goes to visit his mother, who rejects his offer to help with the funeral expenses as she believes he was responsible for Tommy's involvement in crime. At the same apartment building, Kelly runs into Jill, a former girl friend, who tells him that Tommy was decent and honest and that she had been romantically involved with him. Jill believes Tommy was murdered and Kelly decides to find out just how his brother died. To that end, Kelly meets Tony at a betting club he operates, and Tony explains that Rico went to jail after botching a job they were both on. After leaving prison, Rico became a big man with the syndicate. Later, after talking with a bartender and a waitress at the bar where Tommy was last seen alive, Kelly begins to suspect that Rico may have been involved in Tommy's death. Kelly finds Rico's wife Claire at a nightclub, where she flirts with him and invites him back to her apartment. There, she tells him that Rico is just a tiny wheel in the syndicate and they kiss. Later, when Rico returns, he is pleased to see Kelly, but tells him he knows nothing about Tommy's death. However, Claire persuades Rico to return with Kelly to the bar and use his mob reputation to influence the bartender and waitress, who ultimately admit that some of the details they gave at the inquest were false in order to protect Tommy. As Kelly walks home, he is mugged, but mananges to stumble to Jill's apartment. The next morning, Kelly tells Jill he is certain that Tommy was murdered, and she advises him to go to the police. Later, after Wills tells him that a safecracking job the previous evening looked like the work of Kelly, Kelly tells Jill that he genuinely reformed three years before, but that he is unable to convince people of that fact. After Tony's gambling club is raided by the police, and he is arrested, Tony tells Kelly that Tommy had made a trigger for a bomb used in a recent gangland killing in Arizona. Kelly then questions Claire, who says that Rico was recently in Arizona, and they arrange to be found in each other's arms when Rico returns. However, Rico is unconcerned about his wife's infidelity, and nervously announces that he is leaving on a business trip. After Kelly takes Rico to speak with Jill, Claire finds an old newspaper story about a former West Coast mob chief being killed in a car bombing in Arizona. At Jill's, Rico draws his gun and admits to Kelly that Tommy was an innocent participant in the gangland killings and believed that he was fabricating triggers for the music boxes he made, unaware that they were being used to activate bombs. Rico also explains that Tommy was only supposed to be beaten, and that his death was accidental. Kelly guesses that Rico is now on the run from the syndicate for having bungled his assignments and decides to let the syndicate deal with him. When Rico tries to shoot Kelly, he discovers that Kelly had earlier removed the gun's magazine. Kelly tells him to get out, but Rico pleads for help, even offering money. Kelly returns the now loaded gun to Rico, and Rico leaves, but outside the apartment he encounters Wills and Kemper and, mistaking them for syndicate gunmen, shoots at them. They return fire, killing him. Later, after Kelly admits that he feels guilty about wanting to kill Rico, he gives Jill money he earned working on the San Francisco docks so that she can start a new life. Wills advises Kelly to return to San Francisco, and Jill decides to go with him.