Finger Man (1955)

Director:

Harold D. Schuster

Writers:

Norris Lipsius (story) &
John Lardner (story) ...

Release Date:

15 June 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama

Tagline:

"I put the finger on Public Enemy Number One!"

Plot:

An ex-con goes undercover for the government to "finger" the crime boss who made his sister a drug addict.

Plot Keywords:

Undercover | Drug Addict | Murder | Bootlegging | Organized Crime

Cast

Frank Lovejoy	...	Casey Martin
Forrest Tucker	...	Dutch Becker
Peggie Castle	...	Gladys Baker
Timothy Carey	...	Lou Terpe
John Cliff	...	Johnny Cooper
William F. Leicester	...	Jim Rogers (as William Leicester)
Glenn Gordon	...	Carlos Armor
John Close	...	'Big' Walters
Hugh Sanders	...	Mr. Burns
Evelyn Eaton	...	Lucille Martin
Charles Maxwell	...	Fred Amory
Dorothy Green

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:18

Company:

Allied Artists Pictures

Lovejoy, Castle best things about late, no-nonsense noir

Frank Lovejoy, a petty criminal out after his third stretch in prison, gets lucky on a new gig hijacking a truck. The cops catch him – he dropped a cigarette pack covered with his fingerprints – but offer him a deal. If he can bring in mob kingpin Forrest Tucker, they'll let Lovejoy walk.

Not one to sing, Lovejoy turns them down until he meets up with his sister, strung out on the dope Tucker pushes. With the help of Peggie Castle, alumna of Tucker's stable of doxies, he makes himself known to the boss and gets a job running bootleg hooch. Something of a hothead, Lovejoy manages to rub Tucker's henchmen the wrong way, particularly Timothy Carey as his usual psychotic torpedo. As the movie nears its climax, the police wire Lovejoy to tape Tucker at the same time Tucker, his suspicions roused, decides to put Lovejoy on the hit list....

Coming late in the noir cycle, Fingerman avails itself of the flat, brutal style of 1950s crime dramas. So there are no unforgettable characters or characterizations, no flamboyant cinematic set-pieces. But the storytelling stays hard and unsentimental, with a fairly high quotient of violence. And the cast does well with what's written for them. Lovejoy (The Hitch-Hiker, Try and Get Me) does the laconic, low-key noir protagonist – he's good at the basically decent guy in over his head, while Carey creeps us out (his specialty).

Best of them is Peggie Castle, usually a hard-boiled blonde but here, as a woman with a past who wants a good future, she reveals an unexpected subtlety and ambiguity in her portrayal. She also gets the best shot in the film: Leaving Lovejoy's apartment, she disappears poignantly into a desolate urban nightscape. It's the last time we see her alive.