Not the first film to use a sinfully delicious jazzy score as its theme music, this look at a corrupt neighborhood surrounding a notorious dive bar is delicious melodrama from start to finish. It starts with a retiring beat cop showing newcomer George Montgomery around, and the locals, used to the passivity of the retiring cop, getting an idea of the nonsense that Montgomery refuses to tolerate. There's the typical refusal of local teen hoods who do not abide by the rules of the law, the hip girls they hang out with, as well as the local dive bar owner who is like an "uncle" to most of these hood rats, but not one who will send any of them down the right path. Veteran character actor Nehemiah Persoff gives a chilling performance as this "uncle" who utilizes some of the young women as "models" in a way that makes you well aware that they are not real models.
Montgomery is aggressively well meaning but determined to clean up the dirt he notices from day one, quickly making strides with a gang who beats him up over the incorrect conclusion that he had beaten up one of their own. Two of the women find themselves falling for him in spite of their initial resistance to his efforts to clean up this hood, one of them (Marilee Earle) a very young divorced woman who has become the local drunk, one who strips off her clothes every time she gets intoxicated. Earle becomes so dependent on finding respectability and love that it becomes painful to watch her continue to self destruct right in front of your eyes. It is so devastatingly real that it almost becomes unpleasant and uncomfortable to watch.
As for the pretty but rebellious Geraldine Brooks, her ties with the local teen thugs quickly begin to dissolve as she realizes the good that Montgomery is attempting, and while the script could have fallen into preachy cliches, it never does in regards to her character's or Earle's, or the two "models" that Persoff had sent downtown for bigger and better opportunities. I have lived in neighborhoods like this where the local dive bar would become more visited than the churches, and as Persoff said, the people of these areas are so well aware of their limited opportunities that any chance for temporary fake happiness like drugs or alcohol or gambling or physical pleasures become a must to hide their pains. Sometimes reality can be pretty grim, but many people are unaware of the counter cultures like this where others outside their social circle grasp onto what little life they can find. If those unaware of these cultures can learn anything from this, that is to be happy and relieved with their lot in life, because the lot in life for the people in these films is sadly hopeless, that is until Montgomery comes along.
Montgomery is aggressively well meaning but determined to clean up the dirt he notices from day one, quickly making strides with a gang who beats him up over the incorrect conclusion that he had beaten up one of their own. Two of the women find themselves falling for him in spite of their initial resistance to his efforts to clean up this hood, one of them (Marilee Earle) a very young divorced woman who has become the local drunk, one who strips off her clothes every time she gets intoxicated. Earle becomes so dependent on finding respectability and love that it becomes painful to watch her continue to self destruct right in front of your eyes. It is so devastatingly real that it almost becomes unpleasant and uncomfortable to watch.
As for the pretty but rebellious Geraldine Brooks, her ties with the local teen thugs quickly begin to dissolve as she realizes the good that Montgomery is attempting, and while the script could have fallen into preachy cliches, it never does in regards to her character's or Earle's, or the two "models" that Persoff had sent downtown for bigger and better opportunities. I have lived in neighborhoods like this where the local dive bar would become more visited than the churches, and as Persoff said, the people of these areas are so well aware of their limited opportunities that any chance for temporary fake happiness like drugs or alcohol or gambling or physical pleasures become a must to hide their pains. Sometimes reality can be pretty grim, but many people are unaware of the counter cultures like this where others outside their social circle grasp onto what little life they can find. If those unaware of these cultures can learn anything from this, that is to be happy and relieved with their lot in life, because the lot in life for the people in these films is sadly hopeless, that is until Montgomery comes along.