I had never heard of Roger Touhy until I began to study crime films of the 1940's and came across the New York Times while printing out pages from the newspaper advertisement pages. I did not realize until much later that he was indeed a real life person accused of kidnapping and allegedly innocent. Preston Foster Place him here, and it is very apparent that the point of view of this film is that he was guilty.
This film has five sections: the dramatization of the kidnapping of William Post Jr., the way that to he and his gang are caught (quite ironically), the trial (with the appearance of a surprise witness), showcase jail term and escape (only shown briefly) and the aftermath. It obviously has been made more dramatic to make it more cinematic, and that turns it into a tall tale rather than a movie biography.
But for the type of film it is, it's entertaining even though it has cliches of a post narration (which turns it into a crime does not pay extended short) pictures of fine supporting cast including Victor McLaughlin, Anthony Quinn and Harry Morgan, although there's not enough time devoted to creating real characters, just snippets of who these people are supposed to be. That makes it uneven overall and a passable programmer which probably attracted some attention at that time for its unique expressionalism, but today, it just seems melodramatic and somewhat outlandish.
This film has five sections: the dramatization of the kidnapping of William Post Jr., the way that to he and his gang are caught (quite ironically), the trial (with the appearance of a surprise witness), showcase jail term and escape (only shown briefly) and the aftermath. It obviously has been made more dramatic to make it more cinematic, and that turns it into a tall tale rather than a movie biography.
But for the type of film it is, it's entertaining even though it has cliches of a post narration (which turns it into a crime does not pay extended short) pictures of fine supporting cast including Victor McLaughlin, Anthony Quinn and Harry Morgan, although there's not enough time devoted to creating real characters, just snippets of who these people are supposed to be. That makes it uneven overall and a passable programmer which probably attracted some attention at that time for its unique expressionalism, but today, it just seems melodramatic and somewhat outlandish.