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John Payne is the no-good lowdown rat who tries to capitalize on postwar patriotism and grief. He finagles a war widow (Joan Caulfied) into giving up her savings for a nonexistent memorial. When Payne falls in love with the widow he has pangs of conscience, but he reckons without his con-artist boss (Dan Duryea), who tends to bolster his arguments with muscle and bullets. Larceny is a second-echelon "film noir" based on The Velvet Fleece, a novel by Lois Ely and John Fleming. When costar Shelley Winters (who plays Duryea's moll) was asked years later what she did in Larceny, she snapped "lousy acting."