Not quite a film-noir, not quite a B-Movie but this Cy Endfield directed crime flic could fit quite easily into either of those categories and was well enough thought of to earn a BAFTA nomination for Best Film From Any Source. Indeed, if anything it's a social conscience movie reminiscent of Lang's "Fury" and what's surprising is that it was made at all in the America of 1950. Frank Lovejoy is the down-on-his-luck veteran who falls in with hoodlum Lloyd Bridges, (terrific). When one of Bridges' schemes goes wrong Lovejoy finds himself in deeper than he could ever have imagined.
This is a violent and deeply disturbing picture that deals with a much uglier aspect of the American character than most movies of its kind. Likeable, sympathetic characters are thin on the ground and the eruption of violence that closes the picture is still shocking. Endfield, an American who worked most of his life in Britain, never really had the career he deserved, (he was a victim of McCarthyism) but he, like this terrific little picture is now ripe for rediscovery. This has cult movie written all over it.
This is a violent and deeply disturbing picture that deals with a much uglier aspect of the American character than most movies of its kind. Likeable, sympathetic characters are thin on the ground and the eruption of violence that closes the picture is still shocking. Endfield, an American who worked most of his life in Britain, never really had the career he deserved, (he was a victim of McCarthyism) but he, like this terrific little picture is now ripe for rediscovery. This has cult movie written all over it.