Füge eine Handlung in deiner Sprache hinzuA teenager who witnesses the murder of his father vows to exact revenge on the four mobsters involved in the killing.A teenager who witnesses the murder of his father vows to exact revenge on the four mobsters involved in the killing.A teenager who witnesses the murder of his father vows to exact revenge on the four mobsters involved in the killing.
- Regie
- Drehbuch
- Hauptbesetzung
- Boy
- (Nicht genannt)
- Newspaperman
- (Nicht genannt)
- Vic Farrar
- (Nicht genannt)
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You get the same film noir photography: black-and-white with lots of nighttime shots and a lot of tough characters. I just wish they had at least really likable person to root for, but I didn't find any. The "hero," played well by Cliff Robertson, is a tough, revenge-obsessed guy and that's basically the storyline as he tracks down the hoods who beat up and killed his father.
Even though the rest of the cast doesn't have big names, many of the faces are familiar and all are good actors. This is an earlier "Point Blank" film seven years before that came out - same kind of story.
Of the women in here, I found Dolores Dorn the most interesting.
Sam Fuller's movies have an edgy, reckless quality to them, as if lacking propriety. Which is good. What Underworld U.S.A. lacks in subtlety it makes up for in surprise and a kind of sultry sizzle, something very different than more usual "romance" that other crime and noir movies have. There is some second rate acting throughout, but if you accept some of this as "style" and go with the flow, it's click along nicely. In fact, the lack of star power makes the film a hair more everyday, and therefor a hair more realistic in a good way. And the lead male going solo through much of it is first rate, Cliff Robertson.
Not that this is actually believable--it feels contrived all the way--but it has a modern interpersonal selfishness and sometimes cruelty that is fun to watch. The plot? Great enough. But the searing looks, the slaps, the brooding closeups. This is movie-making! Certainly an influence on Tarantino.
As a black and white crime film with a slightly low budget feel, this naturally comes labelled as a film noir. And there are some similarities. But it's also a crime drama, more directly, and it explores (and exploits) the violence of cops and robbers circa 1960. There a lot of unsavory types involved, and some crisp filming. If you like other Sam Fuller films, you'll like this one.
The first part amounts to a textbook of noir. Filming seldom leaves the dirtiest alleys of Columbia's shadowy backlot. After that, drama switches to more conventional lighting and sets, as the threads of Tolly's revenge spread. It's a great supporting cast from fatso Emhardt to tough gal Kay, to handsome, gimlet-eyed Richard Rust as a cold-blooded killer. If Rust had a psycho giggle, he'd be up there with Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death {1947}. To me, however, Robertson underplays to a fault. I never get the occasional sizzle that should intensify a revenge narrative. Over-playing is the usual pitfall for a movie like this, but here the outcome is the unfortunate opposite. Also, the screenplay, though boldly conceived, scatters during the last part, making developmental threads hard to follow. A tighter focus would help.
Nonetheless, there's plenty of compensation thanks mainly to Fuller's camera, plus touches like Tolly's permanent facial scar, symbolic of his wounded psyche. There's also that unexpected ending with its poetically apt trash can. Anyway, the flick may not be top-flight, but good or not so good, it's clearly the work of a movie auteur.
Another part that really, really impressed me was when Devlin (Cliff Robertson, not bad at all in a part that gets to stretch his skills somewhat), nearing the end of his prison term, and finally finds one of the men who beat his father to death when he saw when he was 14. The scene is very tense, but somehow very human too, as Tolly has to contend with a dying man that he has to kill with his own hands. Soon, Fuller gets the gears of the story going further, as he vows revenge against the others who committed the crime, making him pull an undercover act to infiltrate the mob to get close to them, particularly Earl Conners (Rober Emhardt, a plum role for him considering all of his TV parts). But he also falls for a woman, Cuddles, played by Dolores Day, and like Fuller's Crimson Kimono, the weight of the main thrust of what Tolly needs is balanced against what he could also have with his possible romantic interest, caught up in the emotional bog he's in.
I liked a lot how Robertson tapped well enough into the character to make him plausible, even sympathetic. He understands what Fuller is going for, a slightly more realistic- or more powerful kind of representation in the midst of the hard-boiled dialog and more complicated scenes- as he's playing a character who actually has a past, a childhood shown as shattered and made as the complete context that he has to contend with as an adult, despite women around him telling him otherwise. I still remember plenty of shots in the film too (not the gun-shots, the camera-work I mean), and this is after having seen the film months ago, and the driving musical score from Harry Sukman (a solid Fuller collaborator). That Fuller extracts a good deal of compelling entertainment out of a premise that seems pretty standard and even slight is remarkable, and ranks among the other fine superlative B-movies he was doing at the time.
Wusstest du schon
- WissenswertesHanging on the wall in Driscoll's office is a certificate bearing the symbol of the U.S. Army's First Infantry Division - the unit that Samuel Fuller served in during World War II and depicted in The Big Red One (1980). The same type style for the infantry's numeral "1" is also featured in a reading campaign poster in front of National Accounts, the gangster headquarters building. The certificate is for the 16th Infantry Regiment in which Fuller was a corporal.
- PatzerThe opening sequence takes place in December 1939, and Tolly is 14 years old. The bulk of the story begins in June 1960 and takes place immediately thereafter. Sandy comments to Tolly that he's 32 years old now.
- Zitate
Sandy: Why don't you take a good look at yourself. What do you see? A doctor? A scientist? A businessman? You see a scar-faced ex-con. A two-bit safecracker. A petty thief who don't know when he really made the big time. Where do you come off to blast her? No matter what she's been, what she's done. She's a giant! And you wanna know why? Well, I'll tell ya. Because she sees something in you worth saving. If only one tenth of one percent of all the good in her could rub off on you, you'd be a giant, too. But you're a midget! In your head, in your heart, in your whole makeup. You're a midget!
- VerbindungenEdited into Gli ultimi giorni dell'umanità (2022)
- SoundtracksThe Anniversary Waltz
(uncredited)
Written by Dave Franklin and Al Dubin
Hummed by Mrs Farrar when Tolly visits her
Top-Auswahl
- How long is Underworld U.S.A.?Powered by Alexa
- Gun Used by Robertson---Did Cagney & Bogart Use the Same Gun?
Details
- Erscheinungsdatum
- Herkunftsland
- Sprache
- Auch bekannt als
- Underworld U.S.A.
- Drehorte
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Box Office
- Budget
- 1.000.000 $ (geschätzt)
- Laufzeit1 Stunde 39 Minuten
- Farbe
- Seitenverhältnis
- 1.85 : 1