Michael Vandever
A small forest town is trying to promote itself as a place for tourists to come enjoy the therapeutic hot springs and unspoiled nature. Dr. Stockmann, however, makes the inconvenient discovery that the nature around the village is not so unspoiled. In fact, the runoff from the local tanning mill has contaminated the water to a dangerous degree. The town fathers argue that cleaning up the mess would be far too expensive and the publicity would destroy the town's reputation, so therefore news of the pollution should be suppressed. Dr. Stockmann decides to fight to get the word out to the people, but receives as very mixed reaction.
Walt Sherill (Alan Ladd) is attacked and beat down by a group of juvenile delinquents on his way home from work one night. The boys who attacked him are not previously known by the police and are therefore hard to track down. As Sherill starts getting impatient he begins his own investigation. Meanwhile Detective Sergeant Koleski (Rod Steiger) does his best to track down the culprits.
A policeman is accused of manslaughtering a 14-year-old boy but is acquitted of all charges. Still, he feels a lot of guilt and begins to doubt if he really is innocent after all.
