Underworld U.S.A. (1961)

Director:

Samuel Fuller

Writer:

Samuel Fuller (writer)

Release Date:

13 May 1961 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

A Sensational Film That Puts the Finger On Today's Biggest Business... Crime!

Plot:

Fourteen-year-old Tolly Devlin sees four hoods beat his father to death. Twenty years later, the killers...

Plot Keywords:

Syndicate | Revenge | Death | Beaten To Death | Organized Crime

Cast

Cliff Robertson	...	Tolly Devlin
Dolores Dorn	...	Cuddles
Beatrice Kay	...	Sandy
Paul Dubov	...	Gela
Robert Emhardt	...	Earl Connors
Larry Gates	...	John Driscoll
Richard Rust	...	Gus Cottahee
Gerald Milton	...	Gunther
Allan Gruener	...	Smith
David Kent	...	Tolly - aged 14
Tina Pine	...	Woman (as Tina Rome)
Sally Mills	...	Connie Fowler
Robert P. Lieb	...	Officer
Neyle Morrow	...	Barney
Henry Norell	...	Prison Dr. Meredeth

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:K-18

Company:

Globe Enterprises

Trivia:

Hanging on the wall in Driscoll's office is a certificate bearing the symbol of the U.S. Army's First Infantry Division - the unit that Samuel Fuller served in during World War II and depicted in his 1980 film, The Big Red One (1980). The same typestyle for the infantry's numeral "1" is also featured in a reading-campaign poster in front of National Accounts, the gangster headquarters building.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Best of Film Noir (1999) (V)

Raw and Ruthless Samuel Fuller Masterpiece

From its brisk opening, this dark and seamy underworld drama moves like a well-oiled machine, laying out and glorifying Cliff Robertson's revenge tactics to punish the men who killed his father.

Not unlike John Boorman's "Point Blank" which also featured an almost cyborg-natured Lee Marvin punishing the bigshot criminal overlords who did him wrong, here the pursuit is more humanized but suffers no slack as Robertson gives an extraordinary performance.

With a glinty-eyed, crooked smile and a gleeful look which seems to creep into his face as he torments his victims, Robertson suggests a little of Mel Gibson's instability in the first "Lethal Weapon", but without the looniness. His more understated moments are not only very realistic, but are the epitome of cool. Robertson can definitely smoke cigarettes better than anybody.

Fuller's direction is taut, featuring plenty of creative cinematography and a lot of sequences which are far more ahead of their time than the majority of crime films being made around 1961. As always, Fuller manages to tell his story with both hysteria and pathos. This is definitely a must-see for fans of Don Siegel's work or the crime films of Phil Karlson and Anthony Mann. "Underworld USA" could very well share a double bill with John Flynn's "The Outfit" as well. Superb stuff.