Payoff

The murder of a special prosecutor has brought intense police scrutiny on the prime suspect, a gambler named Moroni. But Moroni has an air-tight alibi - on the night of the shooting, he was playing poker at the apartment of ace reporter, Brad McKay. Moroni tells the newsman that the prosecutor's assistant committed the crime, but McKay gets a tip that the gambler is, in fact, the true killer. When both Moroni and the tipster get bumped off, McKay realizes that the plot runs much deeper and closer to home than he ever suspected.

With a clever script full of surprise twists and witty dialogue, The Payoff provides Lee Tracy with another great opportunity to portray his trademark fast-talking reporter character. Tracy's penchant for playing "the press" can be traced from his role as Hildy Johnson in the 1928 stage version of "The Front Page," right up to his 1958 TV series, "New York Confidential." In the mid-1960s, he portrayed a feisty, Truman-esque president in both the stage and screen productions of Gore Vidal's The Best Man.

• mystery
• thriller