Cinematographer Ernest Lazlo had worked on another famous, earlier film noir,D.O.A.(1950), which prepared him for this film.In both, he used German expressionistic lighting and shadows, reminiscient ofThe Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (1920).This independent film features a cheap and sleazy, contemptible, fascistic private investigator/vigilante named Mike Hammer whose trademarks are brutish violence, the end-justifies-the-means philosophy and speed.When he returned to his hotel by taxi later that night, he entered the stakeout car of Taggart and Rosewood, and told them: "All three of us are cops...It was when I met the world.It was when I first met Jimmy Conway." Henry is awe-struck and jubilant as the legendary, "twenty-eight or twenty-nine" year old Conway "worked the room" by shoving hundreds into he pockets of the doorman, dealers, and the bartender.I want to be a toe dancer." Sophia""s mother scolded her: "Be quiet, Sophia.You""re going to marry a king if I have anything to do with it."It was revealed that the doctor (a "horse doctor"), after basically pronouncing that the young girl was healthy (although she may have had scarlet fever and/or a spinal ailment and would be required o wear a "harness" for a year), was also the locality""s "public hangman" or executioner (who performed "operations with an axe").