Watch The Threat For Free

I love this movie so much

not horrible nor great

Brilliant and touching

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The Threat is directed by Felix E. Feist and written by Dick Irving Hyland and Hugh King. It stars Charles McGraw, Virginia Grey, Michael O'Shea, Julie Bishop. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by Harry J. Wild.Maniac criminal Red Kluger escapes from jail and sets off to kidnap the three people he holds responsible for his incarceration.Compact at just over an hour in run time, The Threat is all about Charles McGraw impressing on everyone just what a great portrayer of hard cases he would become. Once the escape and set up of plot has been formed, pic basically confines itself to one cramped location as Kluger and his two henchmen hold four people hostage at their hideout, the fourth person being an unfortunate truck driver who has got in the way. The air of menace is palpable, the atmosphere hot and sweaty, and via torture, violence and mind games it builds to tough old climax, having got there without fuss or filler.Nothing memorable visually, and some of the screenplay involves characters doing daft things, but it's a gritty "B" noir well worth taking a look at. Especially for McGraw's performance. 7/10

***SPOILERS*** With convicted murderer Donald "Red" Kluger, Charles McGraw, busting out of Folson prison the lives of those involved with his capture and conviction Det. Ray Williams, Michael O'Shea, and D.A Baker McDonald, Frank Conroy, are in serious danger. Kluger swore that they'll pay for what they did to him and now he's to keep his promise. That's By kidnapping the two with the help of his fellow hoods Nick Damon & Lefty, Anthony Cruso & Frank Richards, and holding them as hostages in this rundown shack in the middle of the California Desert! Not only that Kluger kidnaps his former gun moll night club singer Ann Williams, Julie Bishop, who he feels ratted him out to the police as well as took off with the $100,000.00 in cash he hid in a bus locker in downtown L.A. Still on a roll Kluger hijacks a moving truck together with it's driver Joe Turner, Don McGuire, to make his getaway amid some dozen police and state trooper road blocks. This all within the first 15 minutes of the movie! What a busy guy this Kluger is!Now in the middle of nowhere in the hot and dry California Desert the Kluger gang wait for pilot Tony Anzo (Ben Weldon), Ann's former boyfriend, to land pick up and fly them to safety across the border into Mexico. It's in fact Tony who can clear up this confusion in Kluger's mind if Ann really took the cash he had hidden away and ratted him out to the police! Which makes you wonder on which side, the police or Kluger gang, that she's on!**SPOILERS** As you would have expected in that there's no honor among crooks in that it's in fact Kluuger and his gang who end up doing themselves in before the police show up. There's also Ann who's on Kluger's sh*t list and whom he treats like dirt during the entire movie who in the end is the one person who ends up blasting him with his own gun: The only one of the Kluger gang's guns that had live bullets in them.P.S The John Garfield looking tough guy actor Michael O'Shea fit perfectly in the part as detective Ray Williams in him coming from a long line of police family members, all his five brothers ended up being cops, himself. Not only that in the 1960's O'Shea became an undercover US Government CIA Agent which showed that what you saw of him on screen was in fact the real McCoy or better yet real O'Shea!

CHARLES McGRAW is not the first name you think of when it comes to actors who specialized in good film noirs during the '40s and '50s, but in THE THREAT he shows why he was one of the best in this genre.McGraw is an ex-convict who kidnaps a D.A. (FRANK CONROY), a policeman (MICHAEL O'SHEA) and a singer (VIRGINIA GREY) to get even with them, his revenge motive. Pretty JULIE BISHOP is O'Shea's worried wife.There's not a wasted moment of running time in the brisk one hour and six minute film. It starts with the prison break, proceeds with the kidnapping and the suspense remains taut during the police investigation and chase. It was obviously filmed on a low budget, but the B&W photography is crisp and all the performances are first rate. RALPH BYRD as a thug and VIRGINIA GREY as the captive girlfriend do well in good supporting roles.It's McGraw who makes the strongest impression as a steely-eyed killer, especially during the tense closing scenes with the captives held at gunpoint. Well worth watching.

"The Threat" is an effective "B" film noir that is kind of a junior league "White Heat" with Charles McGraw starring as an escaped killer seeking vengeance on those who sent him up. The storyline is relatively clever and the threadbare production values are easily overlooked due to the earnest acting and fast pace.McGraw was so evilly convincing as the heavy that RKO subsequently signed him to a seven-year contract and starred him in "Armored Car Robbery", "Roadblock" and "The Narrow Margin". When you consider that this picture was shot in under three weeks with a total budget of $221,000, it is quite an achievement for director Felix Feist.One doesn't have to be 8 years old to appreciate economical film making that rises above the typical RKO "B" film sausage grinding of the time.