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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
a '50's Gangster movie with all the low-budget trimmings, 1 January 2001
9/10
Author: rollo_tomaso (rollo_tomaso@excite.com) from Houston, TX

Victor McLaglen has a ball as Big Tim Channing in this forgotten, yet enjoyable, 1950's gangster movie. With all the stand-by's (Frank Ferguson as crusading D.A., Paul Maxey as crooked lawyer, Anthony Caruso as a two-bit thug), this "B" actioner delivers what you would expect, and a bit more. It probably was intended to elevate the career of its lead, John Baer. As such pretty boys go, he's not too bad, but I never heard of him again. Still, it's a good way to kill an hour and change.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Standard "B" crime potboiler, a cut above many, 27 May 2000
7/10
Author: Holly (aromatic@ivillage.com) from New York, NY

This movie is so low-budget, and the cast generates so much goodwill, that you have to be kind to it. Plot is nothing special, but told with enough of a twist, and with enough smiles, that it deserves notice. Victor MacLaglen is marvelous as an aging thug, and Nicholas Coster makes a striking debut as a young law student. Nothing special, but it moves fast, and you'll have a bit of fun with the production values and stock footage.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
a '50's Gangster movie with all the low-budget trimmings, 1 January 2001
9/10
Author: rollo_tomaso (rollo_tomaso@excite.com) from Houston, TX

Victor McLaglen has a ball as Big Tim Channing in this forgotten, yet enjoyable, 1950's gangster movie. With all the stand-by's (Frank Ferguson as crusading D.A., Paul Maxey as crooked lawyer, Anthony Caruso as a two-bit thug), this "B" actioner delivers what you would expect, and a bit more. It probably was intended to elevate the career of its lead, John Baer. As such pretty boys go, he's not too bad, but I never heard of him again. Still, it's a good way to kill an hour and change.

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Houston Branch could recycle with the best of them., 10 December 2005
Author: Leslie Howard Adams (longhorn1939@suddenlink.net) from Texas

One only has to get about five minutes into the film before realizing that it is derivative of about two-dozen other films----low-ranking gangster adopts and educates a young street hoodlum only to have his protégé turn against him.

Dan Mason (Jimmy Grohman), a twelve-year-old newsboy, is an expert at figuring all the angles; so, when Kink (billed as Kay Kuter), veteran bartender at Billy's Steak House, catches him winning a big jackpot in the battered old slot machines that belong to seedy Tim Channing (Victor McLaglen), he not only defies them to do anything about it but shows Tim how he can corner the slot-machine racket and, at the same time, put his big-racketeer competitors Tony Finetti (Anthony Caruso) and Angelo Di Bruno (Richard Reeves) out of the running.

Thusly begins a partnership between the larcenous---but big-hearted---Tim and the precocious newsboy that lasts and prospers while he is growing up. (A plot premise not new then and still being used today.) Reaching college age Dan (now John Baer)studies law, showing a greater aptitude for finding loopholes in the law than an inclination to uphold it, despite the advice of his law-school Dean (John Maxwell) and the wholesome companionship of his roommate Roy Fellows (Nicolas Coaster), whose father (Charles Meredith) is a retired judge.

But Dan meets Roy's sister Fern (Kathleen Crowley)and his family, and the sincerity and friendliness of Roy's parents and the open adoration of Fern make him begin to work on the right side of the law instead of against it. So, after graduating from law school, Dan agrees to go to work for his old friend Tim...but only if it is honest work.

Tim promises him it will be, but then Finetti and Di Bruno show up from the old days and Tim is put into a compromising position..and things aren't going just exactly as Dan planned and Tim promised...oh, you've seen it several times and can finish it from here? Thought so.

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0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Standard "B" crime potboiler, a cut above many, 27 May 2000
7/10
Author: Holly (aromatic@ivillage.com) from New York, NY

This movie is so low-budget, and the cast generates so much goodwill, that you have to be kind to it. Plot is nothing special, but told with enough of a twist, and with enough smiles, that it deserves notice. Victor MacLaglen is marvelous as an aging thug, and Nicholas Coster makes a striking debut as a young law student. Nothing special, but it moves fast, and you'll have a bit of fun with the production values and stock footage.

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