A 1961 film noir from Samuel Fuller starring Cliff Robertson. A boy witnesses his father being beaten to death by shadowy figures in a dark alley. The murder is so indelibly ingrained in his psyche, he vows to get revenge. Once a man, he intentionally gets incarcerated (learning to be an ace safe-cracker) & makes his way to one of the intended men, who's dying in the infirmary & w/a desire to die w/a clean slate he divulges the remaining names of the perpetrators. For the rest of the film, Robertson, using any means he can, infiltrates the organization which now houses his father's murderers & begins eliminating them one by one (even using a woman involved w/a tangential figure to finger one of them). His only means of human tether is a woman, played by Beatrice Kay, who raised him after a fashion, who implores him to abandon his road to ruin but like night follows day, Robertson's committed to get even. Fuller as always weaves a tale of human frailty taken to the edge as they reach a goal they may not like (witness the reporter in Shock Corridor willing to trade his very sanity for a great story) once they get there.
Review of Underworld U.S.A.
