Close-Up 1948

Phil Sparr [Alan Baxter] is a newsreel photographer in New York City who, while filming outside a bank, stumbles into a high-stakes financial plot. Inside the bank, Mr. Fredericks [Michael Wyler], an associate of Joseph Gibbons, notes that an enormous withdrawal of 800,000 dollars is about to be processed the next day. Phil unintentionally captures Martin Beaumont [Richard Kollmar] as he exits the building, drawing the attention of the criminals. Beck [Russell Collins], Fredericks’s ally, quickly moves to secure the film, spinning a quick story about his wife and girlfriend not needing to see him in the footage.

Phil then meets Peggy Lane [Virginia Gilmore], a diligent magazine reporter, and the two head to deliver the reel to Beck. This fragile alliance is complicated when Phil’s boss, Harry Avery [Loring Smith], reveals a bombshell: Beaumont is actually Kurt Bauer, a notorious Nazi war criminal. The tension escalates as Phil arranges a rendezvous with Peggy at his apartment, only to be kidnapped by Gibbons [Phillip Huston], who poses as a New York City detective.

A daring escape follows as Phil slips away on the Hoboken ferry, but his return to the office is grim: his boss has killed the hitman sent to erase the film. Desperate, Phil entrusts the film can to a cabbie to take to the police, yet the criminals overpower the driver and abduct Phil and Peggy. Peggy, who appears to be aligned with the criminals, undergoes a change of heart and makes a move to help save Phil from a deadly fate.

Beaumont has hired Gibbons to fly him out of the country, but Gibbons tries to double-cross him and seize all the money. Beaumont outsmarts the betrayal and heads toward a seaplane, using Phil as a shield in the tense getaway. Peggy alerts the authorities, and a confrontation erupts when Gibbons arrives, resulting in a gunfight that ends with Beaumont killing Gibbons and his henchman, though Phil pursues Beaumont, and the crime lord is fatally shot by the police. In the aftermath, Phil gratefully acknowledges Peggy for saving his life even as she heads toward jail, bringing a fragile, ironic end to a night of deception, danger, and narrow escapes.