Murder, Inc. (1960) User Reviews

Highlight Is The Interesting Cast Led By Falk's Fantastic Screen Debut; Nice To See This In B&W CinemaScope, Too

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 9 February 2008]

Those who comment that Peter Falk elevated this movie to a very interesting one are right on the money. Falk, in his first role on screen, definitely plays the most interesting character. Of course, anyone who is a deranged killer is likely to be the focus of viewers' attention. However, the actor still has to be convincing and Falk does a fine job here as "Abe Reles."

He's convincing!

What made this film fun for me was not only Falk, but seeing a few other faces I haven't seen in years, such as May Britt, Henry Morgan and Stuart Whitman. Having watched a few "Night Stalker" TV episodes, I was still very familiar with Simon Oakland. The above actors were all very good in here, as was the rest of the cast, except maybe David Stewart as head crime boss "Lepke." He was too bland for his role.

We even get a song from a young Sarah Vaughan and a comedy routine from Morey Amsterdam!

Falk is the undisputed star of the film but second-place, to me, went to Morgan, who was quietly fascinating as the cop "Turkus."

Another nice thing was the DVD which gives us the original widescreen transfer of the film. There aren't many black-and-white CinemaScope pictures available for us movie fans to see, so it was pleasure to view this.

30's mobsters stop at nothing to keep business running smoothly

[helpless_dancer · 6/10 · 4 October 1999]

Crime czar uses contract killers to take out those who would undermine his organization. The unfeeling crime boss, Lemke, who constantly complained about his stomach problems, and his blindly loyal enforcer, Mendy, were frightening in their deadly lust for power. Peter Falk's portrayal of the psychotic Reles was chilling with his murderous, take what you can attitude. This was a gritty look at the New York underworld during the depression. The ending was a tad abrupt, but overall this was a pretty good film.

Peter Falk 11 years before Columbo

[lastliberal · 7/10 · 23 June 2007]

10 years before Peter Falk racked up a trunk-load of Emmy's and many more nominations for his his work as Columbo, he had two roles that would stand out in the film world. One was Pocketful of Miracles in 1961, and the other was this film the year before.

His performance as the contract killer Abe 'Kid Twist' Reles is the best thing about the true-life mob story. While most of the other characters just seem to float through the movie, he was intense ans you could see the promise that would lie ahead for him.

Stuart Whitman, who would get his only Oscar nomination a year later, was also good as Joey, who got caught up in the rackets. May Britt, who would leave the movies to marry Sammy Davis, Jr., was also very good as Joey's wife.

The movie seems more like a documentary when it is not focused on these three characters. As an added bonus, you get to see the legendary Sarah Vaughan in the movie.

Falk Steals The Show And Gains A Career

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 23 July 2008]

Murder, Inc. was a B picture and I remember seeing it as a lad as the second part of a double bill back in the days when they had such things. As I was from Brooklyn the whole story of the gang was interesting to a 12 year old. Needless to say the neighborhood of Brownsville had changed quite a bit even in 1960 from 20 years earlier.

The film is based on a book by the real Burton Turkus who must have consented to the dramatic license taken to bring the story of the taking down of Louis Lepke Burkhalter the only top crime boss to this day ever to get the death penalty. But the atmosphere of the Jewish neighborhood of Brownsville in Brooklyn is certainly captured as is the gang that made the place famous.

The film's a good one, not great by any means, but decent enough entertainment performed by a cast that are well known as competent players, but no box office draws in this cast. But one of them really made his own career with this film.

Peter Falk got the part of Abe 'Kid Twist' Reles who is one amoral example of humanity. Like Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano of more recent times in a career where he participated in a couple of dozen contract killings, when he's caught he offers to turn state's evidence. The end he met is part of gangland lore.

What Falk did was turn in a performance that so impressed the critics that he got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Remember Murder, Inc. was a B film, released with no fanfare so to speak so Falk's performance got the acclaim it did strictly by word of mouth.

The competition that year in this category was pretty good. The others who Falk was competing against were Jack Kruschen in The Apartment, Sal Mineo for Exodus, Chill Wills for The Alamo, and the eventual winner, Peter Ustinov for Spartacus. All of those others were high budget feature films with studios behind them with accompanying publicity machinery. Falk may have been there to round out the field, but just the fact he got there is an incredible tribute to his talent and that particular performance.

Murder, Inc. was not Peter Falk's debut big screen performance, but it is the one that made his career. The rest of the cast which consists of such familiar faces as Stuart Whitman, May Britt, Eli Mintz, Morey Amsterdam, Simon Oakland and Henry Morgan as Burton Turkus perform well enough, but Peter Falk as Reles will never leave you.

Talk about making one's own breaks.

Falk as Abe Reles

[tarnower-1 · 7/10 · 6 September 2013]

I remember watching this movie on TV with my father in the mid-60s when I was about 10 years old.

When Peter Falk was on the screen, my father said that when he was about my age (in the early 1930s), he used to set pins in a bowling alley in Brooklyn, and the real Abe Reles bowled there nearly every day.

I recall what a mad dog that Falk portrayed and how it chilled me that my dad set pins for him.

I will be on the lookout for this movie again, so I can piece it all back together again.

Sordid true crime story brought to grim life by good cast

[mlraymond · 7/10 · 8 November 2006]

For anyone who has read the book by Burton Turkus that the screenplay was based on, the movie is a considerably watered-down version of the ugly events depicted. But the movie succeeds at evoking the grimy environment of Brooklyn hoodlums in the late Thirties and early Forties very well. The leads are adequate and the basic story telling is okay. But what makes this movie worth seeing is the astounding performance by Peter Falk as the hit man Abe Reles. He manages to be incongruously funny, in a way that can genuinely make you laugh, but is absolutely terrifying at the same time. He plays a hoodlum with a grotesquely logical sense of values, who sees life and people through such a distorted lens, that he seems like a creature from another planet. His performance is so uncannily convincing, you feel as if you need to take a shower after watching the movie. The only performance I've seen that comes close is that of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.Definitely worth seeing for true crime buffs and gangster movie fans, though not totally reliable as history.

Falk steals the show

[luciferjohnson · 21 January 2004]

Peter Falk's almost scarily authentic performance as Reles steals this otherwise mediocre account of the real-life Murder Inc., which made latter-day gangsters like the characters in Goodfellas seem like choir boys in comparison. Though allegedly based on the Turkus-Feder book, most of this is complete fantasy. The central "love story," the Whitman and Britt characters, is utterly ridiculous as well as completely fictitious. The portrayals of Lepke and Mendy Weiss are interesting; the fatso playing Albert Anastasia is completely mischast.

The scene at the end is a copout, evidently for fear of offending the NYPD.

The real story of Murder Inc. would be a fascinating movie, instead of this drivel. Even so, this is worth watching because of Falk.

Falk was particularly good here.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 25 February 2020]

During the very late 50s and early 60s, Hollywood made a bunch of real life crime biographies. I am pretty sure this was due to the success of "The Untouchables" on television and, like "The Untouchables", these movies kind of stuck to the facts....sometimes. Well, at least the names were right. But they were very entertaining.

The movie is about a group dubbed 'Murder Inc.". It was a clever creation of the mob...a contract killing organization that could not be connected easily to any of the murders since they simply were doing it for the cash. The film is about some of their activities but is mostly concerned with the government's efforts to prosecute them.

Although this story gives Stuart Whitman and Mai Britt top billing, their parts are really underdeveloped and you never get to know who these people were--especially Whitman's character, Joey Collins. There really is no star in this film...but a few of the hoods come off much better. Folks loved Peter Falk as Abe Reles, one of the most feared hitmen of all time....and he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for this. David Stewart was also excellent as the gang leader, Lepke.

A few times during the film, the filmmakers pulled their punches--especially concerning Reles. Although it did show him making a few hits using an ice pick, apparently this monster was known for stabbing his victims in the brain with the ice pick. Nice guy, huh?! This didn't bother me too much, as it was perhaps too ghoulish for 1960 audiences. What bothered me more was how the hairstyles (particularly Mai Britt's) were purely 1960...not late 1930s like they should have been.

So is it any good? Yes...it's very watchable but also a tad superficial and I felt after seeing it that there was so much more to the story...which there was. Worth your time...not great but quite good.

Peter Falk's debut

[wjfickling · 8/10 · 14 July 2004]

Thank God for Turner Classic Movies for digging up obscure stuff like this, not available on video or DVD, that would otherwise disappear. Not that it's that great a movie; it isn't. There are much better gangster films. However, it is notable for two things: it is Peter Falk's debut film, and it names names, something most gangster films before and after didn't do, unless the film was set well into the past. Of course, all the gangsters whose names are given are conveniently dead: Abe Reles, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and Albert Anastasia. A notable omission is Meyer Lansky, who was alive at the time and thus could have sued for libel. But a pretty good overview of organized crime in the 30s and 40s. Albert Anastasia, by the way, was the real life model for Johnny Friendly, played by Lee J. Cobb, in "On the Waterfront." He was gunned down in a barber's chair while he was getting a haircut in a New York hotel barbershop in 1957. 8/10

Yes, crime can be organized.

[michaelRokeefe · 6/10 · 23 June 2007]

Almost semi-documentary style tale of true crime mingled with fiction. A career starter for Peter Falk, who plays Abe Reles, killer for the mob. MURDER, INC spins a story about notable syndicate boss Louis "Lepke" Buchalter(David J. Stewart) and his murder-for-hire operations. Nightclub singer Joey Collins(Stuart Whitman)and his dancer girlfriend Eadie(May Britt)get tangled into Lepke's web. Dead serious federal agent Turkus(Henry Morgan) convinces the prolific and specific murderer Reles to squeal on Lepke and his mob of guns and knives for hire. Morey Amsterdam plays a not-so-funny funny man that is a victim of Murder, Inc. Jazz great Sarah Vaughan has a brief part as a nightclub singer. Also in the cast: Eli Mintz, Joseph Bernard and Vincent Gardenia.

Serviceable Crime Movie with Falk a Standout

[bob-790-196018 · 5/10 · 4 April 2011]

How much truth there is in this "true story" with "real people" is a question best left to historians of organized crime. The subplot of Stuart Whitman ("Joey") and May Britt ("Eadie") as a loving couple caught up in nasty doings certainly seems like the stuff of fiction. In any case, this is a low-budget "B" picture with limited resources for portraying the 1930s setting and documenting the historical events with authentic detail.

The one extraordinary element in the movie is the performance by Peter Falk as a contract killer. He is not only completely believable in the role but downright original, giving us a character who is merciless and vicious yet quick to take offense if anyone finds this objectionable. He can sound plaintively sincere even as we quickly come to see that he is incapable of sincerity. He has a host of minor quirks and tics that are fun to watch.

Face it, evil can be fascinating and even attractive, in a disturbing way. Another example in this movie is the portrayal of crime kingpin Louis "Lepke" Bucholter by David J. Stewart. While certainly not achieving the high level of Falk's performance, Stewart shows real style as the milk-drinking mobster.

There is one other bonus in this film: Sarah Vaughan, looking young and pretty, sings a nice song with that inimitable voice.

One of the best true mob stories ever filmed !

[unkadunk0801 · 10/10 · 3 August 2017]

I first saw this movie as part of a double bill (to be honest I forget the name of the other movie)and I had never heard of Peter Falk before but knew the other actors but every bodies attention was drawn to Falk s masterful performance as Abe ''Kid Twist''Reles was so scary that he totally dominated every scene he was in {.And to be honest in my opinion he should have won The Best Supporting Actor !It was a truly magnificent role that showed just how truly talented a performer he was And of course he showed how great he was in 'A Pocketful Of Miracles''''Robin & The Seven Hoods''The Great Race'' and of course as Lt.Columbo He was indeed a very talented and gifted actor/Thank you Peter Falk !

Minor b&w gangster picture with a memorable debut performance from Peter Falk.

[Pedro_H · 6/10 · 6 February 2005]

An uneasy mix of fact, fiction and melodrama that purports to explain and expose the rise of organised crime in America. Real names are used for those that had - at that point in time (1960) - died.

Hollywood's relationship with the mob is an interesting one. Not just the host of obvious stories that could be turned in to easy box office or TV shows, but also the way the mob was used by the Hollywood studios to get what they wanted. Which was usually getting a film made with as few problems as possible. One of the ways the "Cali Crew" earned a few extra dollars was controlling extras (sometimes through crooked unions) - because without extras no film can be made.

The fact that they put money in gangsters pockets makes any condemnation rather dubious.

Falk seems to represent a whole group of (real life) mad killers who did the dirty work for the big bosses. Morality to one side, these mad killers built the mob by wiping out those awkward souls that didn't want to play ball and to prove they meant business.

Ironically Falk (in his debut role!) has a certain charisma that doesn't really fit the role totally and this weakens him as a gangster/killer who simply "takes what he wants" - and that includes women! The film starts well enough and involves the fairly common theme of the innocent (or the more innocent) being dragged in because of debt or social situation. Of headline interest, David J Stewart plays Lepke a gangster that gets double crossed by the authorities (or his own side if you want to believe that version of history) and gets the electric chair.

This isn't a spoiler because this is a side plot. Indeed several of the side-plots have their own film - Lepke (with Tony Curtis) being the most obvious.

While just about keeping ahead of cheap melodrama and cliché the film has too much baggage. The most heavy being the portrayal of the police as honest as the day is long (oh yeah!) There is also a tragic romance (involving May Britt - who later married Sammy Davis Junior) which seems to take over the production at the half way point.

By the 1960's America had had enough of rackets and petty criminals that wanted to pick everyone's pockets. While the mob carry on today, the harsh light of publicity has made their job harder - you can't run secret societies when everyone knows about them. This film makes a statement that these people are no longer welcome and "something must be done." Because of this there is no real grand climax - the film just ends at a point of minor poetic justice.

Rambling Mob Drama

[kenjha · 5/10 · 26 December 2012]

A young married couple in 1930s New York becomes dangerously involved with the mob. It gets off to an interesting start, but the script is unfocused, with the narrative rambling all over the place and going on much too long. The presentation is gritty but rather sloppy. Although it does not start with a narrator, one awkwardly pops up about a third of the way through and sporadically thereafter. Whitman is bland. Britt is blond. The only reason for watching is the impressive debut performance of Falk as a vicious hit-man for the mob. This is also the feature film debut of director Rosenberg, who achieved his greatest success with "Cool Hand Luke" a few years later.

great first half

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 11 February 2020]

Killers Abe Reles (Peter Falk) and Bug Workman are hired by mob kingpin Louis "Lepke" Buchalter as his dedicated hit men. They use singer Joey Collins to lure their target into the open. Abe threatens Joey and rapes his wife Eadie. The couple comes under the control of the mob.

This movie would be much more compelling if it stayed with Peter Falk from start to finish. This should be his movie from his point of view. The first half is a great crime thriller. The second half slows down as it concentrates on the snitching. It also gets a bit more melodramatic. The second half falters a little.

I watched this movie for one reason...

[urthpainter · 7/10 · 15 January 2018]

And it delivered! Peter Falk as a contract mob killer plays his role to perfection, and is reason alone to watch this movie.

First is the very surprising brutality on display. The violence doesn't need blood and gore to be both horrific and convincing. The direction of these scenes is also very brave. There isn't any stylization or glorification - just rapid action that surprises the viewer as much as the victims. Obviously all part of the performance, but you get my point.

Rarely does a villain so clearly evil remain interesting throughout a film, but there is something to Falk's performance that is constantly fascinating. His look, the way he carries himself, and the constant self-serving, unapologetic dialog all come together to define a deeply disturbed criminal. He's also completely egotistical and self centered, and often questions those around him who don't acquiesce to his singular world view. It is an absolute clinic on how to successfully play an iconic villain, and it wouldn't surprise me if actors like Joe Pesci studied this movie in preparation for similar roles. There's an ease and comfort level to every moment he's on camera, and one wonders where the actor begins and the character ends.

It is quite possible Peter didn't want to play characters like this moving on, but it is a shame. I always been a fan of his presence in anything, but watching this movie, I wonder what other dark roles he could have wowed audiences.

What about the movie itself? It's not bad. There are very dated montage sequences with a voiceover that fill major gaps in the plot, and only one or two other performances come close to Falk's. There are some priceless exchanges of dialog between characters though - any time anyone stands up to Falk, and the inevitable explosive reactions are wildly entertaining. The movie is built on a historical facts, and this film represents an interesting era of killers for hire in the world of organized crime.

I absolutely loved the look of this movie. The black and white film stock seems perfect for the content, and never was I upset with any camera placement or move - which speaks to great direction, and a camera man who understood the content and never gets in the way of performances or story.

My appreciation exists between pretty narrow margins, but I can't stress enough: if your a fan of crime drama's, villainous performances or Peter Falk - this is an absolute must watch.

completely satisfied 7 out of 10

Solid

[dougdoepke · 15 March 2013]

Real life New York gangsters who specialize in murder are portrayed here, even as the DA and his minions try to get the goods on them.

Solid gangster film, thanks mainly to Falk's breakthrough performance. Hollywood of the late 50's and early 60's was enamored with movies and TV based on real life bad guys, as they are here. I expect the big success of The Untouchables (1959-1963) and Capone (1959) contributed greatly to the trend. Anyhow, it's a mostly no-name cast, giving things a less Hollywood look. Plus the photography is about as dour as visuals get. But then things shouldn't be prettified, given the grim subject matter. Okay, that's true except for the blonde knockout May Britt, who never quite made a movie career, but sure looks good here (mostly).

Oddly, there's no noisy shooting with machine guns splattering windows as was common for big time crime films. Instead, guys get dispatched quickly and efficiently, befitting a corporate approach to murder by contract. Note that no one in the film is particularly likable. We may sympathize with Joey and Eadie (Whitman&Britt), but that's about it. Falk as professional killer Abe Reles is scary and convincing as all-get-out. Besides, his short, chunky frame looks nothing like Hollywood.

Over the years, there's been a lot of speculation about Reles flying out of an upper story hotel after turning songbird for the cops. Whether, a cop on mob payroll did it or not, it's pretty clear somebody on the force was in on it, considering how heavily Reles was guarded. Anyhow, it's a solid tough guy movie, with a performance by Falk that brought him to the attention of all Hollywood.

Pretty good hard-boiled gangster pic

[jamesrupert2014 · 7/10 · 25 April 2018]

Peter Falk is Abe Reles, a small time gangster turned notorious hitman in this fact-based crime story about the East-coast syndicate and its affiliate "Murder, Inc.", a loosely organised group of killers for hire in the early 1930's. Most of the characters are historic, and the story revolves around attempts to indict mob boss 'Lepke' Buchalter (David J. Stewart) despite disappearing witnesses and corrupt cops. Stuart Whitman plays a singer indebted to Reles who gets pressured into setting up one of the victims and May Britt his lounge act wife, both of whom end up 'knowing too much'. Falk is very good as the quick tempered, street-smart killer (similar to roles played by Joe Pesci decades later) and the rest of the cast is fine albeit in not particularly challenging roles. The films suffers a bit by resembling a late 1950's TV crime show ("Dragnet" (1951) comes to mind), partly because of the occasionally expository voice-overs, partly because of the music, which was scored by Frank DeVol, remembered for many 1960's and 1970's TV themes, and partly because of a number of anachronisms (commented on elsewhere). Despite these minor weaknesses, the film is a good, tough, crime melodrama about an interesting time in the history of organised crime.

Somewhat disappointing

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 25 February 2014]

Film editor Ralph Rosenblum is obviously a disciple of Sergei Eisenstein. Certainly, Eisenstein's method of montage is very appropriately applied here – as is Gayne Rescher's bleak black-and-white CinemaScope photography. This documentary was actually based on the autobiography by Burton Turkus (played by Henry Morgan in the movie). Alas, the direction by Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg is often over-reverential towards its original material. In fact, the movie is so weighed down with talk that the pace often slows to the speed of a snail. Fortunately, some persuasive acting is contributed by David J. Stewart and his glum henchman, Joseph Bernard. I also enjoyed Morey Amsterdam's bit. The film also supposedly "introduces" Sarah Vaughan who actually made her movie debut back in 1951 in "Disc Jockey". She sings a couple of songs. One actor we could do without, however, is Stuart Whitman whose performance is not only unconvincing but painfully tedious. May Britt's acting also disappoints, but at least she is easy on the eyes! As for Frank DeVol's music score this also is well below his usual high standard.

Watch Peter Falk in a compelling early film role in Murder, Inc.

[tavm · 8/10 · 8 March 2007]

While Murder, Inc. mainly revolves around the capture of gangster Lepke, the most compelling character is hit man Abe Reles, excellently played by Peter Falk in one of his earliest movie roles. He got an Oscar nomination as a result. Those who know him mostly as the calm Lt. Columbo will be very surprised by the intense rage Mr. Falk puts in his performance especially during his "take" speech he gives to a married couple who have no choice but to accept his offer of an apartment he gives them. Also noteworthy are Vincent Gardenia as his lawyer (loved his "I'd rather you were dead" aside before Reles-having overheard him-asked, "What did you mean by that?" "It was just a figure of speech,"comes the reply), May Britt as wife in aforementioned couple, Sarah Vaughan as a nightclub singer (in a musical interlude), and Morey Amsterdam as a comic who meets a tragic end in the beginning. Based on a true story but with, as always, some dramatization involved. One of the two directors was Stuart "Cool Hand Luke" Rosenberg. Well worth seeing for gangster movie fans.

Late Film Noir

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 2 August 2018]

Though released in 1960 and therefore in my opinion too late to be considered a true film noir, "Murder, Inc." plays like one, and I can easily see this having come out about a decade earlier, when noirs were in their heyday, with little alteration.

It's based on the true events that led to a crackdown on an organized crime syndicate in Chicago in the 1930s, and specifically a group of hired killers who were employed to wipe out anyone who crime bosses viewed as an adversary. It makes absolutely no effort to recreate period detail, and aside from a few antique cars, looks like it's set in the present day of 1960. Stuart Whitman plays the protagonist, a man whose desperation leads him into a life of crime but whose moral code leaves him feeling conflicted and ultimately leads to him becoming an informer. The film is probably best known today as the one that brought Peter Falk his first of two Oscar nominations for playing one of the hired killers and both friend and foe to Whitman. The film looks cheap and gritty, which serves the material well, but it also feels ragged and undercooked, and not in that enjoyable way that traditional noirs could often be. Especially toward the end, the film feels like its makers lost interest in the movie they were making and decided to abruptly wrap things up just so they could be done with it.

Grade: B

Cool and Ironic Tale of Crime.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 23 July 2008]

This doesn't pretend to be a documentary-style drama of Murder, Incorporated, the 1930s organization that accepted murder contracts, although the Introduction tells us, "ThIs Story is True. The People are Real." A good guess is that Peter Falk's character, Abe Reles, was a real historical figure, along with some ancillary characters, but I don't believe Mai Britt's character, as the innocent schlub Stewart Whitman's wife, had its genesis in anything but the writers imagination. She embodies the anima of the film, the tender-hearted part designed to appeal to the women in the audience, while the men are wringing their hands in anticipation of the next homicide. And the truth is, if you have to have a female victim in the movie, Mai Britt will do as well as anybody else. She may not be much of an actress but her beauty is practically extraterrestrial. Each of her wildly slanted blue eyes seems to look in a direction of its own choosing, like a chameleon's. She's stunning.

So is Peter Falk, but in an entirely different way. He may be wearing a fedora and a suit and tie, or even evening dress, but he still looks as seedy as Lieutenant Columbo. There the resemblance ends. He's a cold-blooded merciless killer (he uses an ice pick) and he's first-rate at scanning other people for their emotions. If, for instance, a gangland lawyer like Vincent Gardenia rescues him from the cops (Simon Oakland) with a writ of habeas corpus and then, when Falk tries to shake his hand, remarks, "I wouldn't be caught dead with you," Falk knows right off the bat that Gardenia doesn't like him. But Falk is not only perceptive, he's sensitive. He's HURT when someone insults him. The problem is that he's the kind of guy who's chagrin can express itself in only one way -- violence. It's a nasty trait, and this is probably Falk's best dramatic role, not that there were that many of them.

Stewart Whitman, alas, is stuck with the part of the innocent guy who agrees to do a few small favors for Falk in order to work off the money he's borrowed, but then discovers he's been swept up in some nefarious doings. You know, along the lines of Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy in "On The Waterfront." "Geeze, Charlie, I thought you was just gonna LEAN on him a little." This true story of real people turns Abe Reles into a sadistic rapist as well as a hit man, so the ending isn't inappropriate. Any sorrow one might feel at Abe Reles' passing, a spectacular exit through the window and off this mortal coil, is limited to the realization that now he won't be able to testify against Albert Anastasia and the rest of the Goombas he works for. The police are supposed to be the good guys here, but I don't know. Of the three priceless witnesses they're holding under close protection, two manage to get murdered.

It can't have cost much to make this picture. There's little attempt to evoke the neighborhoods of Brooklyn in the 1930s. The hair styles are entirely modern, as if the producers didn't really care whether the audience noticed or not. Even the sets are spare and functional. When Falk shows off a palatial apartment to Mai Britt, it's risible because it resembles a set left over from a high school play about rich people.

Falk is entertaining, though, and Mai Britt is Venusian, and simmering in the background is something about Murder, Inc.

That's about it. The movie is strictly routine.

nope

[treywillwest · 8/10 · 5 July 2016]

I love the urban-crime films of the '40s- early '60s. They're distinguishable from Noir in that while they focus on the seedy side of urban American existence, they do so without focusing on personal subjects- protagonists or anti-heroes. (The most famous example would be Dassin's Naked City.)

This movie stands out within this largely forgotten Hollywood genre. It does not even have a collective protagonist, like most such films, such as a police force. Indeed, the only action that brings any emotional catharsis occurs off-screen, and one cannot conclusively identify its perpetrator. Society is just violent, and sometimes we identify and approve of some of its brutalities more than others.

Tough

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 24 November 2021]

A good, tough, and no-nonsense Hollywood crime drama based on a true story from the 1930s. The story sees Stuart Whitman and his wife getting involved with various real-life gangsters and struggling to survive against them, while the justice system works to bring them down at the same time. Towering over everyone else is a debuting Peter Falk, outstanding as an amoral hitman.

Period Piece Without the Period

[johnnypunish-54913 · 5/10 · 18 June 2020]

So it's supposed to take place in the mid-1930 but many of the characters had a early 60s feel. Most of the tell was the late 50s, early 60s haircuts. May Britt looked more like Twiggy than a mid-30s young lady. And the music also reflected a early 60s feel as well. Most period pieces make a solid attempt to fit the period. But this one did not. It's an late 50's early 60s movie telling a story about the mid-30s.

Now, if you can get past that weird bizarre choice, then you can appreciate the acting of Peter Falk. As the psycho-killer, he did a fine job. Worth the watch for that reason alone.