I know shamefully little about Director Harold Schuster but I can tell you that FINGER MAN has not turned him into a lost gem in my view. The acting is strictly standard from a cast where Frank Lovejoy seems out to outdo Jim Cagney, hijacking a truck with valuables at the start and promptly getting caught by police because of his smoking habit.
He should have known, even in the glorious days of cigarette acting, that tobacco is bad for you. Ignoring advice turns out to be oone of Lovejoy's main shortcomings but police force him to see his niece and sister, who are down and out because of a criminal kingpin called Dutch (Becker, not Schultz) who claims to control many bodies and souls all over US territory. And now police want Dutch fingered and served on a platter, and poor Lovejoy faces the unenviable task of identifying a villain he does not know, and that is the easy part of his mission! At stake: getting it right or joining a large number of souls already in the netherworld thanks to bad ol' Dutch...
This is where technology kicks in thanks to wiretapping, but not before Dutch has iced a couple of good souls. Thankfully, Lovejoy enjoys his more than fair share of beginner's luck, doing very little to hide his bugging tool, and, with leading questions, he gets Dutch to waste no time spilling the beans.
Alas, Dutch detects the listening device but he has no joy against Lovejoy, who had already boastfully announced to Dutch that he needed a strong man like him (Timothy Carey, Dutch's bodyguard, stood at about twice the size of Lovejoy, but the latter's Cagney-like pugnacious tenacity and sharp tongue made the difference and got him everywhere!)
Typical B cinematography, typical B script. 5/10.
He should have known, even in the glorious days of cigarette acting, that tobacco is bad for you. Ignoring advice turns out to be oone of Lovejoy's main shortcomings but police force him to see his niece and sister, who are down and out because of a criminal kingpin called Dutch (Becker, not Schultz) who claims to control many bodies and souls all over US territory. And now police want Dutch fingered and served on a platter, and poor Lovejoy faces the unenviable task of identifying a villain he does not know, and that is the easy part of his mission! At stake: getting it right or joining a large number of souls already in the netherworld thanks to bad ol' Dutch...
This is where technology kicks in thanks to wiretapping, but not before Dutch has iced a couple of good souls. Thankfully, Lovejoy enjoys his more than fair share of beginner's luck, doing very little to hide his bugging tool, and, with leading questions, he gets Dutch to waste no time spilling the beans.
Alas, Dutch detects the listening device but he has no joy against Lovejoy, who had already boastfully announced to Dutch that he needed a strong man like him (Timothy Carey, Dutch's bodyguard, stood at about twice the size of Lovejoy, but the latter's Cagney-like pugnacious tenacity and sharp tongue made the difference and got him everywhere!)
Typical B cinematography, typical B script. 5/10.