In spite of breakout success with B-pic thriller MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS/’45, star Nina Foch and director Joseph H. Lewis never did reach the A-list*, plateauing on B+ budgets like this trim film noir about Treasury Department agent Glenn Ford (and team) taking down a Big City Mob Syndicate. Split between IRS procedural efforts to nail down a paper trail for all those unpaid taxes (3 mill owed from illegal betting, protection rackets, counterfeit goods) and threatening set pieces (a humdinger kidnapping/rubout attempt at the climax), with plotting and strategy as clearly laid out & easy to follow as Ford’s classic noir GILDA/’46 was opaque. Just not as fun, not as sexy, not as exciting, not as dumbfounding . . . and missing Rita Hayworth something awful. Sense & sensibility not a necessity in these things. Still, worth a watch, with good support on both sides of the camera. If only the mob boss wasn’t nicknamed The Big Fellow. (Not exactly Scarface memorable.*) And if that sweet Italian grandmother didn’t rescue the operation with a long speech (in Italian!) about her dream of America.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Foch only hitting the A-list in supporting roles.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Something of a trial run for Lewis’s superior noir, THE BIG COMBO/’55. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-big-combo-1955.html
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Odd title for a film that doesn’t send anyone undercover. Maybe the guy who came up with the title also thought ‘Big Fellow’ would make a catchy mob nickname.
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