On Dangerous Ground

Police detective Jim Wilson is known for employing physical violence to extract information from suspects and witnesses. After Wilson ignores his chief's warnings, he is relegated to a case upstate. He joins a manhunt pursuing the murderer of a young girl and teams with Walter Brent, the father of the victim. After they spot a man and chase him through the snow, Wilson and Brent become separated from the rest of the manhunt.

They track the suspect to a remote house where they find a blind woman, Mary Malden, alone. She tells Wilson and Brent that she lives with her younger brother Danny. Wilson learns that Danny, who is mentally disabled, is the killer and Mary asks Wilson to protect him. Wilson agrees to capture Danny peacefully, and he and Brent spend the night at the house.

At dawn, Mary visits Danny, who is hiding in the storm cellar. She tells him that Wilson is a friend and will take him away to be helped. On her way back to the house, Wilson confronts her and Danny runs out of the cellar.

Wilson trails Danny to a secluded shack. Danny brandishes a knife, but Wilson is patient and they talk. He learns that Mary had foregone eye surgery for Danny's sake. Danny says that he did not mean to hurt the girl, he just wanted to make her smile. Wilson slowly advances, preparing to take the knife from him, but Brent bursts into the room, shotgun raised, and the two men brutally struggle. Brent's gun fires and Danny escapes. Wilson hurls the gun into the snow.

The two men chase Danny up a rugged, snow-covered stone peak. Danny loses his footing and falls to his death. Wilson carries Danny's body to the nearest house. Mary arrives, having heard the gunshot. In the bedroom with her brother's body, she prays that God will grant Danny forgiveness and peace.

Wilson walks with Mary back to her home and asks is she will now have the surgery. She confesses that she is afraid, and Wilson wants to help her but she wants no pity and sends him away. Wilson drives all night to reach the city, pensively remembering the recent events. Later, he returns to the house and reunites with Mary.

The film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann and is strongly evocative of his later, better-known score to Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 thriller North by Northwest. Herrmann later reused a sequence that became the opening theme song of the 1957 television series Have Gun Will Travel.^{[citation needed]}

Herrmann used the six- or seven-stringed viola d'amore, which uses extra strings that vibrate with sympathetic resonance to reinforce played notes, to symbolize Mary Malden's isolation and loneliness. The sound of the instrument can be heard much of the time when she appears on the screen.^[3] It was performed by Virginia Majewski, who received a screen credit for her contribution.