During the 1950's a new wave of hoodlum pictures filled the screens: 'The Asphalt Jungle,' 'Rogue Cop,' 'Party Girl,' 'The Desperate Hours,' and 'The Big Heat', to name but five...
Most gangster-movie fans remember that a girl got hot coffee thrown in her face in some film, but how many remember the film, the girl, and the thrower?
Gloria Grahame is a green-eyed blonde, with unusual lips, tiny voice, and sulky appearance... She is a gangster's moll dressed in silk and satin... Her presence alone can incite men to criminal behavior... She is sensual, spiteful, uncontrolled, and lethal... Her freezing looks are as memorable as her steamy actions... She is both tough and vulnerable, a combination not rare but here at its most winning...
Lee Marvin (later to become famous as the toughest of all screen villains) is sadistic, cold-blooded mobster, a very bad person...
Glenn Ford is angry and icy, with quiet authority and sincerity... He made what is almost certainly his best film... He is fine as the honest homicide cop who resigned from the police force to discover who murdered his wife... He bust a crime-ring with manic determination, gradually becoming as cruel and ruthless as they are...
Ford is ordered repeatedly by his lieutenant to stop interfering, but,obsessed with vengeance, walks out of the police department and sets out to get Marvin and Scourby unrestrained by the delicacies of police technique and the influence brought to bear on his superior...
The film's tensions are strongly intensified by :
Considered at the time to reach a new low in violence, this excellent film noir crime classic also struck a new note of realism in crime films (gambling, conspiracy, extortion, murder...) and produced one of Glenn Ford's most typical performances...
Most gangster-movie fans remember that a girl got hot coffee thrown in her face in some film, but how many remember the film, the girl, and the thrower?
Gloria Grahame is a green-eyed blonde, with unusual lips, tiny voice, and sulky appearance... She is a gangster's moll dressed in silk and satin... Her presence alone can incite men to criminal behavior... She is sensual, spiteful, uncontrolled, and lethal... Her freezing looks are as memorable as her steamy actions... She is both tough and vulnerable, a combination not rare but here at its most winning...
Lee Marvin (later to become famous as the toughest of all screen villains) is sadistic, cold-blooded mobster, a very bad person...
Glenn Ford is angry and icy, with quiet authority and sincerity... He made what is almost certainly his best film... He is fine as the honest homicide cop who resigned from the police force to discover who murdered his wife... He bust a crime-ring with manic determination, gradually becoming as cruel and ruthless as they are...
Ford is ordered repeatedly by his lieutenant to stop interfering, but,obsessed with vengeance, walks out of the police department and sets out to get Marvin and Scourby unrestrained by the delicacies of police technique and the influence brought to bear on his superior...
The film's tensions are strongly intensified by :
- Dorothy Green, the 'B-girl' who tells Bannion that she was Tom Duncan's girlfriend and that the policeman had no reason to kill himself...
- Jeannette Nolan, the grieving widow who is "on the take" for years, and isn't silenced...
- Jocelyn Brando, the cozy martyred young wife who is brutally blown up in a car by a violent explosion intended for her husband... (An interesting foreshadowing of 'The Godfather.')
- Alexander Scourby (an interesting foreshadowing of "The Godfather"), the suave chief villain and loving family man who at the same time ran a criminal empire with business efficiency...
- Willis Bouchey, a corrupted Lieutenant who orders Bannion to lay off the case...
- Howard Wendell, the Police Commissioner whom Bannion advises to find out who planted the dynamite in his car...
- Robert Burton, the detective who promises to help his companion, but off the record...
- Peter Whitney, the retreat's bartender who assumes a "don't ask" policy...
- Adams Williams, the mob who threats the obsessive detective to stay out of the case...
- Dan Seymour, the very cool and uncooperative 'scared rabbit.'
- Edith Evanson, the crippled secretary who offers the information Atkins withheld...
- John Crawford, Bannion's brother-in-law who makes a call at exactly 9:30 P.M. and "ask for Larry."
Considered at the time to reach a new low in violence, this excellent film noir crime classic also struck a new note of realism in crime films (gambling, conspiracy, extortion, murder...) and produced one of Glenn Ford's most typical performances...