Bill Cannon (Dan Duryea) loses everything to alcohol: his job, his family, his self-respect. Soon after his wife and daughter leave him, he receives word his little girl has been injured in a car accident outside Chicago. His wife will call later with news, but Bill’s short the $53 he needs to keep his phone from being disconnected. Filled with anguish, he heads out onto the Los Angeles streets to find some way to come up with the cash. As his character encounters expected cruelty and unexpected kindness, Duryea takes what might have been mere melodrama and turns it into a perceptive examination of one shattered soul. The other fine star of this race-against-the-clock programmer is an unglamorous, lunch-bucket L.A. rarely captured on film.
Dan Duryea
as Bill Cannon
Mary Anderson
as Mary Cannon
Gordon Gebert
as Bobby
Ross Elliott
as Jim
Melinda Casey
as Nancy Cannon
Judy Brubaker
as Babs Kimball
Marcia Mae Jones
as Peggy (as Marsha Jones)
Marsha Jones
as Peggy
Roy Engel
as Pete
Jean Harvey
as Christine
Steve Pendleton
as Police Lt. Ryan
Gene Roth
as Guard
