Knock on Any Door

Having pulled himself out of the poverty and squalor of a big city slum, idealist lawyer Andrew Morton (Humphrey Bogart) agrees to defend a young juvenile delinquent from his old neighborhood. Nick Romano (John Derek), the son of an innocent man Morton had unsuccessfully defended as a young lawyer years earlier, stands accused of murdering a policeman. In opposition to a law-and-order prosecutor (George Macready), Morton argues that Nick's deprived upbringing led to his life of crime.