When John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) steps off the train at the backwater hamlet of Black Rock, he inadvertently opens a Pandora's box of fear and suspicion. He's there to deliver a military award for heroism to a man whose son died earning the medal in World War II. But the town harbors an ugly secret -- and will go to any lengths to keep it in director John Sturges's taut drama. Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin co-star.