The head of a factory grievance committee falls in love with the new foreman.

Burt Lancaster stars as barbaric Broadway gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker, and Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, the unprincipled press agent he ropes into smearing the up-and-coming jazz musician romancing his beloved sister.

Crusading publisher Austin Spenser wants to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence. Spencer talks his prospective son-in-law Tom Garrett into participating in a hoax, the better to expose the alleged ineptitude of conviction-happy DA. Tom will plant clues indicating that he is the murderer of a nightclub dancer, then stand trial for murder; just as the jury reaches its inevitable guilty verdict, Spencer will step forth to...