L'homme de main

Johnny Allegro (George Raft) is a florist in Los Angeles with a dark secret. Femme fatale Glenda Chapman (Nina Foch) gets him to help elude the police. Treasury Department agents blackmail him into going undercover to discover her secret plot.

Setting up the plot is a little bit wonky and a little rushed. Raft does fine but this cannot rise above its B-movie nature. There is also an element of James Bond villainy and trying to be high class style. I sorta expected Allegro to order a martini although Raft is definitely no Bond. The movie is trying to be a few things at the same time but it falls a little flat. The tension is never raised that high. The bow and arrow is probably the definition of that. It's a little odd but it's not intense. It's also a little camp like summer camp. I'm giving this a passing grade.

George Raft is "Johnny Allegro" in this 1949 B movie also starring Nina Foch, Will Geer, and George Macready. Raft plays a florist who is in actuality an escaped prisoner in hiding; he's approached by treasury agent Geer to clear his record by getting cozy with a woman he just met (Foch). Her husband (Macready) is distributing counterfeit (and ripping off his Soviet boss). They live on an island in the Caribbean. While she's trying to get out of town and away from the Feds, Raft kills a police officer to help her. Then he insists that she take him along or he'll be captured. This sets him up with her suspicious husband (McCready).

Not bad; the ending is reminiscent of "The Most Dangerous Game." George Raft couldn't act, but for someone who played gangsters so much, he had a warmth and a smoothness. By 1949, some of his gravitas had gone, but he was still pleasant to watch. When I was growing up, Nina Foch was playing skinny socialites on TV. It's always nice to see her as a young leading woman. Will Geer as the treasury agent is delightful, very laid back.

You might want to see this for the cast.

I know the '49 film "Johnny Allegro" was late in George Raft's career and he was at or near age 54 when he did this picture in Los Angeles, but since the film is in black and white it also hides a lot of aged looks on an actor's face, etc..... However, "Johnny Allegro" is still one of his better starring efforts.....

Odd as it seems, George Raft is one of my top classic gangster figures from the golden age of Hollywood. However, I must admit, George Raft was usually better when he was the supporting actor and not so much as the lead.. I guess the reason is, as a supporter in a film, George Raft had the opportunity of working with guys like James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Paul Muni and Humphrey Bogart... Even if the script was below par, with the aide of an all-star cast it often can lift a poor film up a bit because of the cast of actors appearing in the scenes together.... I noticed that when George Raft was the lead actor, he often was forced to carry the film alone and was working with good but "Lesser" actors who weren't as popular with film viewer's.... Thus, those type of films get reduced to "B" quality.....

I guess that George Raft's peak years in Hollywood was more than likely between 1938 to 1945...... By '45 George Raft was age 50 and fully wearing some upper hair-piece to cover the horse shoe.... Cheers to George Raft....

MR.BILL Raleigh

George Raft made a conscious decision to play ethical central characters--tough on his pocketbook, perhaps, but doing what was necessary. He turned down parts that others made successful in the popular sense; but "Johnny Allegro" was worth making, as "High Sierra" was not, not as "fiction". And this was a man who had scene first hand the negative influence gangsters could have on lives. In this case, Raft agreed to play a character well within his somewhat-limited range. Johnny Allegro is no saint, no genius. But he is a man willing to do the right thing to square himself with the law, and help the police investigate an "untouchable", a Mr. Big brilliant played by George Macready. Ted Tetzlaff directed this interesting mission film, with his usual skill, from a script by Karen de Wolf, Gene Endore and James Edward Grant. The idea is that Macready smuggles men to a remote Caribbean island, men who need to escape the law, and they then serve his criminal organization loyally because they must. Johnny's police pals set him up as a man on the lam for having killed a policeman to make his escape, all faked; then he is able to join another escapee and find his way to the island through the villain's usual channels. Then he falls in love with someone Macready, the usual Renaissance man and intellectual villainized in US films--holds as his prize possession--lovely Nina Foch, his wife. Investigating the island to which he has been spirited, he finds a way to call in the cops and cover his actions. But then he and Foch must escape Macready and his bow and arrow--with which he kills the disloyal in his empire...The film is attractive in B/W but not stylish; yet the cast is above average. other players include Will Geer as Raft's boss who believes in him,, Thomas Browne Henry as his boss who does not, Gloria Henry, Ivan Triesault, Harry Antrim, Bill Phillips, and many others. George Duning wrote the fine music and Frank Tuttle did the elaborate set decorations. The other element in the film is the noir mission sense of being beyond help, and the growing romance between Raft and the brilliant Nina Foch, who for once is given a sympathetic part in a film. This is a well- paced, interesting and well-mounted "B" effort; and one that bears repeated watching for its mystery, its situation-derived characters and the under-theme of loyalty which is interestingly examined. Above average.

A decade before TV brought us Johnny Staccato, Columbia Pictures presented Johnny Allegro, a florist with a concession in a fancy hotel who gets wrapped up in a police manhunt.

We start with what appears to be a typical Hitchcock setup: an innocent man gets drawn into peril thanks to a leggy blonde. But is Allegro truly as innocent as he appears? Not in the eyes of "Schultzy" the cop (played convincingly by Will Geer, almost unrecognizable to those of us who only remember him as "Grandpa Walton").

So now we have a new plot developing: a crook infiltrating another crook's operation in order to clear his name with the police. He ends up in a swanky manor on a secluded Florida island, trying to track down some counterfeit money that could ruin the US economy.

And finally, we end up with a finale that steals a page or two from "The Most Dangerous Game," as Raft is hunted across the island by a foe with a bow.

In my opinion, Raft was too old for this role, and not terribly convincing as an action figure. The plot seems like a jigsaw puzzle made from three different boxes that don't quite match, and there's nothing outstanding about the visual aspect of the picture. It's got some good moments (mostly thanks to Geer and Foch) but overall it's not satisfying. More like Johnny Andante, not quite up to speed.