While there isn't a lot of spectacular action or twists in this film, it is rock solid throughout--sort of like an episode of "Dragnet" or "The FBI". A very good script and nice attention to law enforcement details make this one worth watching.The film begins with two FBI agents on an assignment. One is unexpectedly murdered by someone hiding in the shadows. The surviving agent (Broderick Crawford) seems to think that someone on the other agents list of open cases has done the crime, so he looks into the three cases. And so, you see Crawford go from case to case--looking for clues and solving the cases while he's at it. It all leads to a dandy final set at the Hollywood sign.As I said above, the show is big on realism and police procedures. I also appreciated how ordinary and ugly some of the cast were--like real life. Overall, it's a lot like a tidier version of film noir--with a strong infusion of realism and good acting.By the way, if you do watch, look for the guy with his home-made 'spy detector'!

Broderick Crawford as Agent Ripley takes over three cases for a murdered FBI man in "Down Three Dark Streets," a 1954 film also starring Ruth Roman, Marisa Pavan, Martha Hyer, and Max Showalter.This is one of those police or FBI films done in semi-documentary style that abounded in the '50s. Each woman is involved in a crime; Roman is being threatened with her daughter's life if she doesn't turn over her late husband's insurance money; Pavan is the blind wife of a man jailed for being involved in car theft, but he won't reveal any information about the ring; and Hyer is the girlfriend of a wanted killer who is on the run. When two murders occur, Ripley is convinced they're tied to one of the cases, but which one? Great '50s LA sites are a highlight of this film, along with a suspenseful ending. The story involving Ruth Roman was done as a suspense movie by Blake Edwards later on as "Experiment in Terror" with Glenn Ford as Ripley.There is one major plot hole I must point out. One of the FBI men follows a character to a department store, where she takes a girdle to try on and goes into a dressing room. The operative asks if there's an exit behind the dressing rooms and is told yes, there's a staircase leading to a back entrance. Well, all I can say is, that store must have had hundreds of thousands of dollars in shoplifted merchandise yearly if that was the case.

DOWN THREE DARK STREETS, with its trio of cases for the FBI to solve, was the template eight years later for EXPERIMENT IN TERROR, reduced down to just the extortion plot. Broderick Crawford is "Agent John Ripley" in the first, Glenn Ford is named the same character in the second. STREETS uses the semi-documentary approach (heavy-handed voice-over narration) and is more of a whodunit, while EXPERIMENT is a real suspense-filled thriller with the villain identified much earlier. But even then, it is much more chilling. Ruth Roman is the fear-filled victim in the original, Lee Remick plays the spunky lady being extorted in the semi-remake. Good Los Angeles locales, especially the "Hollywood" sign usage in the first. But great San Francisco scenes in TERROR, particularly the Candlestick Park shootout following a Giants-Dodgers game. Both are recommended, with STREETS a competent mystery and EXPERIMENT a classic at the end of the Noir cycle.

The hero is not who you think in the first 15 minutes..A FBI agent tries to find the murderer of a colleague from the different cases he was assigned to. Semi-documentary and well-paced movie.