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the audience applauded

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

So much average

I'll tell you why so serious

I wrote a rather extensive review of the silent crime drama on which this remake is based last December. This one's plot retains most of its elements, but still differs quite a bit. Both are tight, under 90 minute features and the remake actually feels shorter because it's action packed! Catch both on TCM if you get the chance.Robert Mitchum is the honest police Captain Thomas McQuigg that crime boss Nick Scanlon (Robert Ryan) can't seem to get rid of despite his having McQuigg transferred to different precincts whenever he wants. Scanlon "built this city" and has seemingly all the politicians - including District Attorney come Judge Welsh (Ray Collins) - in his employ.But the world is changing, as Scanlon's thugs sheepishly try to tell their boss, and the rough tactics that worked in the past are being replaced and becoming more organized in the shadow Acme Real Estate Company, run by Nick's never seen boss "the old man", who's represented by his 'secretary' Connolly (Don Porter).Ryan fleshes out Scanlon, giving his typical all-out performance as a streetwise violent tough guy that won't conform and can't be contained. Unfortunately Mitchum looks like he's sleepwalking by comparison.However, there are several other energetic or key characterizations including the one by Collins, William Talman as an ambitious honest cop under McQuigg's command, and William Conrad as a crooked but pragmatic police detective.Additionally, Lizabeth Scott (third billed!) plays a nightclub singer mixed up in the proceedings as the fiancée of Nick's clean younger brother Joe (Brett King), Robert Hutton as a cub reporter that figures in the end, Joyce Mackenzie and Virginia Huston as Mitchum's and Talman's wives, respectively.

Very enjoyable and well done film noir bolstered by an outstanding performance by Robert Ryan as the head bad guy. Robert Mitchum is the Police Captain goaded and ridiculed by a snarling Ryan; they go back a long way, you see, and Mitchum's virtue and purity bewilders Ryan. There are lots of recognizable Hollywood character actors that populate the cast, adding weight and gravitas to the story. Not sure it's necessary at this late date to summarize the plot, but suffice it to say that Ryan has a stranglehold on all the key politicians in this city, which sometimes looks like New York, other times not. And so Mitchum is determined to break Ryan's hold and put him in jail. It's not as easy as it sounds. I could watch film noir all day long and this was one of the best of the genre. Can't find a flaw in it, except to say that it comes off as a little stagey at times, as though adapted from the stage (it's not). And no one could project menace like Robert Ryan.

Slightly above average crime drama with Film-noir elements that has some outstanding highlights and some very pedestrian lowlights.A couple of realistic action pieces and a vile, nasty performance from Robert Ryan are negated by some contrived side elements and stiff political posturing, and very weak love interests.Surprisingly the real bad guy..."the old man" who is the head of the crime syndicate is never brought to justice, or for that matter even identified. This is an intentional cover-up by the filmmakers and deliberately deflected at the end. As if to say, no matter how many of these street thugs we arrest, the master criminals of the Racket are above the law.This was a bold "oversight" slipped in, from an industry that was hand-cuffed by a code that stated...CRIME DOES NOT PAY. Very clever.

Any movie with principals like Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, and Lizabeth Scott certainly sounds "noir", especially with support like William Conrad and William Talman. But this isn't. It's more of a "detective story." That may be just as well because I understand that some people have difficulty pronouncing the word "noir." Briefly, Mitchum is the new Chief of Police brought into District Seven to clean up some of the corruption, which, as it turns out, leads all the way up through the judicial system. Mitchum is the straight arrow. He wears a suit and tie and has a domestic life, as hard as that is to believe.The proximate bad guy is Ryan as Nick Scanlon. He runs all the local rackets in this unidentified city with the connivance of the politicians. He's Ryan-as-bad-guy through and through. He never asks for quarter nor does he give any.This puts him on the spot because The Syndicate is moving into more sophisticated territory, with front organizations like The Acme Real Estate Company, money laundering, and probably structured derivative instruments. Ryan knows nothing about this stuff. He's an old-fashioned kind of gangster. Somebody gets in his way, he spanks him.The plot gets kind of complicated. Talman is a good cop who arrests Ryan's brother for carrying a concealed weapon. That puts him in bad with Ryan and he pays the price. Lizabeth Scott and Robert Hutton are folded into the story with nothing much to do.Most of the scenes are static shots of people standing around and talking. There are some brief action scenes too -- the obligatory car chase through the city streets, the explosion of a bomb on Mitchum's porch, two shootings. Well -- three, I guess, but the third takes place off screen and is pretty well handled.Some of the action scenes are less than well done. Mitchum and a horde of cops have a couple of hoods cornered in the garage of an office building. Mitchum pursues one of them up the stairs to the roof, where they have an ill-staged brawl. And what do the rest of the police do? Instead of rushing to his aid, they stand on the street below, with their arms folded across their chests, and watch the fist fight with considerable interest.Mitchum, when he got a good part, could really rise to the occasion, as he did in "Night of the Hunter," "Cape Fear," "The Sundowners", and "Farewell, My Lovely." This part must not have engaged him because he walks through it without any expression except an occasional smirk.The steely-eyed Ryan, on the other hand, is a cauldron of emotion. He has a terrific scene in which he tells Mitchum of the trouble his younger brother has caused him. Something like, "I paid his way through four colleges. FOUR! I even had to buy a chair at one of them. Well, not a chair. They call it an endowment." (Ryan kicks a chair.) The poor guy is beset by problems -- what with his brother determined to marry that night club canary, Scott, and the pressure from The Old Man above to lay off the rough stuff. Sometimes a man can't win for losing.