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Touches You

As Good As It Gets

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A juvenile delinquent witnesses the murder of his father by mobsters and seeks revenge as an adult. This is a brutal crime drama, with lively direction by Fuller, although he goes a bit overboard with shadows, closeups, and zooms. Robertson is not bad, but seems miscast as the tough guy who, driven by vengeance, singlehandedly takes on the syndicate. The best performances are turned in by the two leading actresses: Dorn (recalling Stella Stevens) as a gangster's moll and Kay (recalling Thelma Ritter) as a mother-figure for Robertson. Also notable are Rust as a ruthless mob henchman and Gates as a federal prosecutor.

Underworld U.S.A. (1961)Sam Fuller's movies have an edgy, reckless quality to them, as if lacking propriety. Which is good. What Underworld U.S.A. lacks in subtlety it makes up for in surprise and a kind of sultry sizzle, something very different than more usual "romance" that other crime and noir movies have. There is some second rate acting throughout, but if you accept some of this as "style" and go with the flow, it's click along nicely. In fact, the lack of star power makes the film a hair more everyday, and therefor a hair more realistic in a good way. And the lead male going solo through much of it is first rate, Cliff Robertson.Not that this is actually believable--it feels contrived all the way--but it has a modern interpersonal selfishness and sometimes cruelty that is fun to watch. The plot? Great enough. But the searing looks, the slaps, the brooding closeups. This is movie-making! Certainly an influence on Tarantino.As a black and white crime film with a slightly low budget feel, this naturally comes labelled as a film noir. And there are some similarities. But it's also a crime drama, more directly, and it explores (and exploits) the violence of cops and robbers circa 1960. There a lot of unsavory types involved, and some crisp filming. If you like other Sam Fuller films, you'll like this one.

Sam Fuller seems to have spared all expense with this low-budget indy which is glaringly short on people and automobiles for a contemporary urban mob film.As a teen Tolly Devlin witnesses his father being beat to death in an alley. Swearing vengeance on all involved he does a bid in a reformatory before graduating to the state pen where he sadistically offs his first victim. Upon release he falls for a dame, dupes a police inspector and exacts revenge on the drug pushing scum now living the high life as respectable citizens.Part of my enjoyment of watching a Fuller film is the way he stretches his budget. A low ratio of filmed takes can contribute to inconsistent performances that suffer from his occasional prosaic and stilted dialogue which is the case with Underworld. The Desilu style sets look like they were borrowed without permission after everyone went home and some of the props in the commissioner's office look like some of Fuller's "Big Red One war memorabilia from his den. He can't afford major stars but Cliff Robertson gives a highly credible performance as Devlin and its nice to see perennial minor character actor Robert Emhardt in a more substantial role as the mob kingpin.It is for his tenacity to see his vision through with near complete independence that I am willing to cut Fuller some slack but in Underworld USA he gets sloppy with his editing and montage and his pacing becomes erratic in an environment that's glaringly artificial. It deserves to be whacked.

Cliff Robertson plays Tolly Devlin, an embittered ex-convict who has spent a lifetime tracking down the men who murdered his father. Desirous of handling matters on his own, Devlin pretends to be loyal to both the Mob and the Government, playing one against the other in hopes of flushing out the killers. He learns that the three surviving assassins are employed by a supposedly charitable "cover" operation known as National Projects. To get what he wants, Devlin ingratiates himself with mob boss (and outwardly solid citizen) Conners (Robert Emhardt). What Robertson didn't count on was falling in love with "Cuddles" (Dolores Dorn), which leads to his own downfall - but not before justice is served. Producer/director/writer Fuller based "Underworld U.S.A." on a series of "exposé" articles in The Saturday Evening Post. A prime example of Fuller's tabloid sensibility, the film careens through its plot at a lightning pace showcasing his penchant for fevered, sensationalistic imagery and shocking violence. Though not as good as his earlier crime thriller "Pickup On South Street", or his later masterpieces "Shock Corridor" and "The Naked Kiss", this is prime Fuller for afficianados.