London 1947 - it’s rainy and smog ridden, swarming
with sweaty, sadistic small-time black marketeers,
hag-faced toothless harridan prostitutes, rat faced
squealers, slimy grasses, heart-of-gold cashmerewearing
Judys, squalid, smoky dockside boozers,
and bobbies in mackintoshes and capes.
Enter ex-RAF man Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard).
He wants a bit of action with a gang led by sharp,
sadistic, snooker-playing knuckle-duster wielding
Narcy (Griffith Jones) - but he baulks at their drug
dealing side and ends up framed for a cop murder...