Dark City (1950)

War vet Danny Haley operates an illegal gambling joint with Augie and Barney, with slight-framed ex-boxer Soldier, who Augie believes has taken too many hits to the head in their animosity, their clean-up man. Danny is dating nightclub singer Fran Garland, who would like their relationship to be more committed than Danny is willing in he having been burned before in marriage. The joint has just been raided yet again despite they paying protection money. This latest raid, which makes Danny ponder getting out of the racket, easier to do if he had the money, brings the three into the sights of the new Vice squad captain, Garvey. Danny, Augie and Barney don't really like each other unless it is in the pursuit of money. It is in such a scheme that they lure out-of-towner Angeleno Arthur Winant into the temporarily shut-down joint, and hustle him in a crooked poker game in knowing that he is carrying a $5,000 cashier's check which was supposed to be used to purchase equipment for the health club for which he works. In the scam against Arthur not going quite according to plan, Danny, Augie and especially Barney begin to believe that someone in Arthur's life, about which they know nothing beyond what little Arthur told them, is out to kill them, they turning from the hunter to the hunted, that is unless they can figure out a way to turn the tables on whoever is after them. In the process of trying to lure that person out into the open, Danny gets a taste of a happy, straight life, something to which he may aspire if he lives that long.