Chapman, Broderick Crawford, is the ambitious editor of the New York Express, turning the paper into a magnet for sensational headlines and brisk, attention-grabbing stories built on yellow journalism. His closest ally in the newsroom is Steve McCleary, John Derek, the sharp ace of reporting, while Julie Allison, Donna Reed, a gifted feature writer, chafes at the paper’s drift away from real muckraking toward more lurid, crowd-pleasing pieces. One night at a lonely hearts dance sponsored by the Express, Chapman’s carefully crafted world begins to crack when his estranged wife, Charlotte Grant, Rosemary DeCamp, confronts him with a devastating truth: his real name is George Grant, and decades ago he vanished from her life by changing his identity. When she presses for reconciliation, Chapman is pushed to a violent edge — he restrains her and she dies in a struggle, the scene staged to look like an accident.
The killing sets off a chain reaction. The police initially accept the bathtub-slip explanation, but McCleary presses the case with his trademark persistence, turning a potential blip into a full-blown murder investigation. The public’s fascination grows as the media dubs the killer the Lonely Hearts Killer, and Chapman grows increasingly uneasy about the spotlight tightening around him. Into this swirl staggers Charlie Barnes, an alcoholic former star reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner, who happens upon Charlotte’s suitcase and finds wedding photographs that reveal Chapman’s past life as Grant and his marriage to Charlotte. Barnes realizes the killer’s identity and tries to share the scoop with Julie Allison, but Chapman overhears the conversation and acts quickly, silencing Barnes before he can publish the truth. The sensational momentum only intensifies.
With Allison’s help, McCleary pieces together a web of clues and presses on. A second wedding photo turns up, though it’s difficult to be sure at first glance that the groom is Chapman. The duo travels to Connecticut to locate the judge who conducted the marriage and to identify the man in the photograph. After days of digging, they find Judge Elroy Hacker, and they bring him back to the newspaper building. The judge confirms that Chapman and Grant are one and the same person. Though McCleary remains startled by the confirmation, Allison’s careful reasoning pieces the last fragments together, and Chapman confronts the assembled evidence. In a tense moment, he draws a gun, but the police arrive before he can shoot McCleary. Rather than escalate the confrontation, Chapman chooses to bless McCleary with the full publication of his crimes and then meets his end through suicide by cop, ending the Lonely Hearts Killer saga.
