Side Street (1950) Farley Granger Eng

After his gas station goes bust, New York City family man Joe Norson, unable to find steady work, is forced to take a low-paying part-time job as a mail carrier, forcing him and his expectant wife Ellen to move in with her parents. In the short term, Joe just wants a couple hundred dollars to provide Ellen with private health care and a private room at the hospital when the time comes. Desperate, Joe senses an opportunity to steal that $200nhe saw earlier in the filing cabinet of attorney Victor Backett, whose office is on Joe's delivery route. However, Joe doesn't find $200 in the filing cabinet, but rather $30,000, and steals that entire amount without realizing, until he is able to check, in private, the briefcase in which the money was placed. Joe is able to handle the thought and explanation for a few hundred, but panics over tens of thousands--how and where can he hide it all from Ellen and her parents? Joe is unaware that the money was blackmail money crooked Backett and his criminal associate Georgie Garsell received from their target, wealthy Emil Lorrison, who they set up in a sextortion using their seductive accomplice, Lucille Colner. What makes the money even hotter is that Georgie murdered Lucille following the sting on Lorrison. This situation places Joe and the unaware Ellen's lives in danger at the hands of Backett and more violent and volatile Garsell.