Rent Underworld U.S.A. (1961)

Revenge Noir (spoiler). - Underworld U.S.A. review by Steve

Micro-budgeted, late period film noir that owes a stylistic debt to the Warner Brothers gangster films of the '30s. It's a revenge story about a boy who witnesses his adored but no-good dad gunned down by the mob and swears to get even. When he grows up to be played by Cliff Robertson, he joins the gang to get close the killers, giving the audience a window into how they operate.

The rackets still control gambling and protection and break unions, but have insidiously spread into juvenile crime, like teenage prostitution and selling narcotics at the schoolgate. As was typical in postwar gangster films, the mafia are a semi-legitimate business which operates in plain sight but keeps some business off the books.

Sam Fuller characteristically punches low. It's set among the the criminals and the jailbirds who prey on the vulnerable. It is compelling because we want to see these sordid pimps and pushers and strongarm killers get summarily sawn off... But the revenger isn't a hero. He's a psychopath driven by his personal demons rather than the greater good. 

This is a low budget film big on ostentatious style. When the dying vigilante staggers down main street with a bullet in his back and crashes into a bin marked 'Keep Your City Clean' we could be back in the symbolist, b&w world of Little Caesar. It's shot in the studio on threadbare sets. Robertson is too old and there is an obscure support cast. But Fuller- as always- makes plenty out of very little.

Running on Fuller - Underworld U.S.A. review by CH

The Mob is pitted against the FBI in a tale which was derived by Fuller from newspaper reports. Front pages figure largely in the narrative after events which have see many felled along the way (including a bicycle, no..., better not give it away: gasp for yourself). With so many villains on display - not so much Mr. Big as Messrs Big - there can become something close to monotony, even confusion. Thank goodness, all is alleviated by Fuller's adroit way with close ups and the use of black and white.

One hardly questions some of the turns which range from poolside to alleyway, both perilous, and yet one might pause to ask why there are no spectators to a prolonged scene which culminates in THE END filling the screen?

Would that Dolores Dawn had appeared in more films rather than returning to teach others in acting school.