Broderick Crawford throws his gristly bulk into the role of Mark Chapman, executive editor and chief cynic of the New York Express, a rag whose circulation-boosting stunts are the shame of its stockholders. When a figure from Chapman's past washes up among the human flotsam at an Express-sponsored lonely-hearts dance, ugly recriminations lead to a Weegee-worthy scene of manslaughter. The editor hopes to erase his error by dropping a wedding ring down the sewer and tearing a paper heart to pieces. But sordid death is the Express's stock in trade, and soon Chapman finds himself selling the story even while evading the investigations of his own star reporter (John Derek). Karlson adapts Samuel Fuller's novel The Dark Page with tabloid gusto: the film moves to the clattering pace of city-desk chatter, and Burnett Guffey's starkly lit renderings of Bowery gin joints and tenement backstairs imbue Fuller's pulpy yarn with a pungent air of urban authenticity.
—Juliet Clark