When media mogul Amos Kyne (
Robert Warwick)
dies, his business, which includes a major newspaper, a television
station, and a wire news service, is turned over to his sole heir, his
foppish, ne'er do well son (
Vincent Price).
The younger Kyne has no knowledge of how to run the company his father
built, preferring to spend his time spending the money that it
generates, and he decides to let the heads of the three divisions --
newspaper editor John Day Griffith (
Thomas Mitchell), wire service chief Mark Loving (
George Sanders), and photo chief Harry Kritzer (
James Craig) -- fight it out among themselves, winner-take-all. Each one has a key alley: Griffith, in Edward Mobley (
Dana Andrews), a top reporter who is lately appearing on television as well; Loving, in resourceful but sluttish columnist Mildred Donner (
Ida Lupino),
who has her own way of digging up secrets; and Kritzer, who doesn't
think he needs to dig up secrets because he's sitting on the biggest one
of all, his "friendship" with Kyne's ex-model wife, Dorothy (
Rhonda Fleming).
Mobley becomes a focal point because the story-of-the-moment concerns
the "Lipstick Killer," a serial murderer, burglar, and sex fiend who has
been terrorizing the city -- break that case first and the job is won,
and Mobley's specialty is crime reporting.
