Johnny Stool Pigeon is a 1949 black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 directed by William Castle

William Castle

William Castle was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Castle was known for directing films with many gimmicks which were ambitiously promoted, despite being reasonably low budget B-movies....

. Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

, who made his movie debut that same year appearing in Criss Cross, has a non-speaking role as a mob

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 gang member. "Stool Pigeon", in gangster

Gangster

A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....

 terminology, means a police informant.

Plot

A narcotics agent convinces a convict he helped send to Alcatraz go undercover with him to help expose a heroin drug smuggling ring. The unlikely pair travels from San Francisco to Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

 and finally to a dude ranch

Dude ranch

The guest ranch, also known as a dude ranch, is a type of ranch oriented towards visitors or tourism. It is considered a form of agritourism.-History:...

 in Tucson which is run by mob bosses. They end up getting help breaking the case from the gang leader's dingy blonde girlfriend (Winters), who falls for the narcotics agent during the sting.

Cast

• Howard Duff
  Howard Duff
  Howard Green Duff was an American actor of film, television, stage, and radio.Duff was born in Charleston, Washington, now a part of Bremerton. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Seattle in 1932 where he began acting in school plays only after he was cut from the basketball team...
  
   as George Morton aka Mike Doyle
• Shelley Winters
  Shelley Winters
  Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
  
   as Terry Stewart
• Dan Duryea
  Dan Duryea
  Dan Duryea was an American actor, known for roles in film, stage and television.-Early life:Born and raised in White Plains, New York, Duryea graduated from White Plains Senior High School in 1924 and Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the Sphinx Head Society...
  
   as Johnny Evans
• Tony Curtis
  Tony Curtis
  Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
  
  as Joey Hyatt (credited as Anthony Curtis)