The Naked Edge
In the aftermath of a theft and murder, Martha Radcliffe (Deborah Kerr) increasingly suspects her husband George Radcliffe (Gary Cooper), whose testimony in court convicted the main suspect, of being the real culprit.
Businessman Jason Root (Martin Boddey) is stabbed to death on a night when George and a clerk named Donald Heath (Ray McAnally) are the only other employees working at the office. A mailbag full of money is stolen in the process. George sees Heath in the Boiler Room when he runs after the murderer right after he hears Root crying after being stabbed; George, who is seen sweating nervously both during the trial and later, insists that Heath must have been the murderer, and Heath is convicted. Several years later a lost mailbag is found and the Radcliffes receive a letter long delayed that was in the bag. The letter, which Martha reads, contains a blackmail threat from Jeremy Gray (Eric Portman) accusing George of the crime.
As the story unfolds, clues pointing to George quickly accumulate. These include a new business he started soon after the trial, using money that he claims to have made in the stock market; his own desperate desire for success; his lying to his wife in order to secretly search for Gray; the suspicious new business with an unknown man, Morris Brooke (Michael Wilding) right after the trial; and Gray's claim, when Martha finds him, that he was an eyewitness to the crime and George was the murderer.
George and Martha repeatedly have conversations in which she vacillates between questioning him and insisting she believes in his innocence, and he alternates between insisting that she believe in him and telling her to make up her own mind. Tension is built by the repeated appearance of George's old-style shaving razor, his insistence that she join him at the edge of a cliff, references to his masculine virility, and his warning that her investigation could threaten his business.
At the conclusion, a man tries to kill Martha after being seen sharpening George's razor. The man turns out to be Gray. George rescues his wife just in time and subdues Gray as the police arrive.
murder