“A Fortune If They Seal Her Lips!…A Bullet If They Fail!” This is the tag line that appeared in most advertisements for this “B” film at the bottom half of double bills in American cinemas in 1952. But The Narrow Margin turned out to be much more than a “B” film—in fact, it is one of the favorite cult films of noir addicts and launched director Richard Fleischer’s career into “A” movies. Starring Charles McGraw as Detective Walter Brown and Don Beddoe as Gus Forbes, the film begins in a sleazy part of Chicago. Brown and Forbes have orders to escort Mrs. Neall (played expertly by “B” film actress Marie Windsor) to Los Angeles to give testimony to a grand jury that may indict her gangster husband. They will travel on a crack train, keeping their witness safe until they deliver her to the Los Angeles District Attorney. Before the train trip begins, Forbes is murdered by three thugs in the employ of Mr. Neall, who is never seen throughout the film. Brown speeds Mrs. Neall away from the crime scene and sequesters her in a private compartment on the train. The events which take place on the train provide the real suspense in the film.

Charles McGraw plays a hard-boiled detective with ease, and genuinely hates the mobster’s wife he is sworn to protect. His mysogynistic attitude shows even before he meets her, when he says to his partner, “What kind of a dish is she? The sixty-cent special—cheap, flashy, strictly poison under the gravy?” When Brown meets Mrs. Neall, one of their

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