The Narrow Margin

A woman planning to testify against the mob must be protected against their assassins on the train trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.

• Director: Richard Fleischer
• Genre:Crime / Drama / Film-Noir
• Runtime:71 minutes

Cast

Charles McGraw : Det. Sgt. Walter Brown
Marie Windsor : Mrs. Frankie Neall
Jacqueline White: Ann Sinclair
Gordon Gebert : Tommy Sinclair
Queenie Leonard : Mrs. Troll

Detective Sgt. Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) is assigned to protect a mob boss’s widow, Mrs. Frankie Neall (Marie Windsor), as she rides a train from Chicago to Los Angeles to testify to a grand jury.

Brown, on the way to meet her, expresses his contempt for Mrs. Neall to his longtime partner and friend Gus Forbes (Don Beddoe): “She’s the sixty cent special. Cheap. Flashy. Strictly poison under the gravy.”

Forbes is killed by the mob just after they pick up the woman. At the station, Brown discovers that he has been followed by gangsters Joseph Kemp (David Clarke) and the genteel Vincent Yost (Peter Brocco), who unsuccessfully tries to bribe him.

Brown’s relationship with Mrs. Neall is caustic. She is cynical and flashy, constantly flirting with him while doubting his integrity and commitment to protecting her. Brown makes friends with an attractive passenger he meets by chance, Ann Sinclair (Jacqueline White), and her too-observant young son Tommy (Gordon Gebbert). However, Kemp spots them together and thinks that Sinclair is the target. When he confronts Kemp and gets into a fight with him, Brown learns of the mistake. He turns Kemp over to overweight railroad agent Sam Jennings (Paul Maxey) and hurries to warn Mrs. Sinclair.

However, she has a surprise for him – she is really Mrs. Neall. The other woman is a decoy named Sarah Meggs. Meanwhile, Jennings is knocked out by Kemp’s more-dangerous associate Densel (Peter Virgo), the assassin who killed Brown’s partner, and Kemp is freed.

The gangsters enter Brown’s compartment and kill Meggs. Then Densel goes for Mrs. Neall. He is cornered in a locked compartment with her, with Brown outside. Brown uses the reflection from the window of a train on the next track to shoot Densel through the door, then enters the compartment and finishes him off. Kemp jumps off the stopped train, but is quickly arrested. Read more