Shoot to Kill

During a high-speed car chase with the police, Marian Langdon Dale, her husband Lawrence, the newly elected district attorney, and Dixie Logan, an escaped murderer and crime boss, crash, and Larry and Logan are killed. Later, reporter George "Mitch" Mitchell visits Marian at the hospital and asks her to explain how she and Larry ended up in Logan's car. The groggy Marian relates the following story: While waiting to see Larry about a secretarial position, Marian meets the admiring Mitch, who helps her to secure the job. Over lunch, Marian admits to Mitch that she decided to apply for the job after she saw the ambitious Larry successfully try Logan for murder, using eyewitnesses who Logan claimed were bribed. Despite Mitch's attraction to her, Marian soon begins dating Larry. One day, while Logan's rival, crime boss Gus Miller, waits to see Larry in his office, he becomes suspicious of Larry's janitor, Charlie Gill. That night, after Charlie plants a listening device in Larry's office, he is killed by two thugs. At Larry's apartment, Miller, who along with two other bosses, Mike Blake and Ed Carter, has an "understanding" with the prosecutor, reveals that he ordered Charlie's murder because he knew he was working for Logan. Miller also tells Larry that he must fire Marian because he is sure that she knows too much. As Larry is writing Marian's dismissal letter, however, he stumbles upon Charlie's listening device, which leads into Marian's coat pocket. Instead of firing Marian, Larry proposes to her, and she happily accepts, seemingly unaware that he suspects her. After Marian and Larry are married by Marian's old friend, Judge Joel Conroy, Marian is almost struck by a gunman's bullet. Although Larry insists that the attack was ordered by the recently escaped Logan and meant for him, Marian is certain she was the target and accuses him of marrying her only to protect himself. Revealing that she knows about Larry's crooked relationship with the crime bosses and has evidence to prove it, Marian orders her husband to go straight. Marian then informs Larry that he cannot come into her bedroom until "he earns it." Afterward, the city is besieged by a crime wave, which Larry seems powerless to stop. The beleagured Larry is then contacted by Al Collins and Jim Forman, the witnesses he bribed in the Logan trial, who demand money for their silence. Marian overhears the conversation and advises Larry to send the witnesses to Mexico until his election to district attorney is assured. Instead, Larry tells Miller he has a "job" for him. Before Miller's thugs arrive at the witnesses' hotel, however, Logan confronts them and forces them at gunpoint to confess that they were hired by the crime bosses to lie against him. Unknown to Logan, Mitch has been following him, and after the witnesses are gunned down on the street below by Miller's men, the reporter offers to corroborate the confessions in exchange for Logan's surrender. Logan refuses Mitch's offer and beats him to obtain the incriminating papers. The next day, Mitch goes to Larry's office and reveals everything he knows about Logan. Citing public safety, Larry asks Mitch to hold back on the story, and Mitch, who is unaware of Larry's illegal activities, agrees. The seemingly cornered Larry then plots his next move--the double double-cross. Promising each of the crime bosses that with his help, they can wipe out the other two, Larry schemes to have all of the bosses killed or jailed. Larry also orders Miller to kill Mitch, but as Miller's men are about to do the job, two other thugs intercept and kill them. On the eve of Larry's ascension to the district attorney's office, a depressed Marian informs her husband that she mailed her damning evidence to John Forsythe, the outgoing district attorney. At that same moment, Larry is accosted by an angry, gun-wielding Miller, who has deduced the lawyer's double-cross. Before Miller can shoot Larry, however, he is shot by Logan, who reveals that he is Marian's husband and posed as Judge Conroy in order to fool Miller into believing he had married his knowing secretary. Logan then demands that Larry help him to become the crime boss, but is shocked when Larry tells him about Marian's mailed evidence. An enraged Logan hits Marian, and she denounces him as "rotten." After Logan forces Marian and Larry into his car, the police, having been tipped off by Mitch, pursue him and finally force him to crash. Back at the hospital, a remorseful Marian concludes her story, then learns that John intends to burn her evidence so that she and Mitch can start a new life together.