Expected more

Better Late Then Never

Best movie of this year hands down!

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

A tough adolescent (David Kent) witnesses four men beating his father to death. Three of the killers go on to higher positions (narcotics, unions, and prostitution) in Underworld USA, while Kent morphs into Cliff Robertson, now an ex-con with a perpetual sneer on his face as he manipulates his way into the syndicate in order to avenge his dad's brutal murder. Fuller's concern about narcotics reaching into the suburbs is ingeniously portrayed in the film as big boss Emhardt demands that the business pick up in order to keep up with other crime boss syndicates. He orders more dealers to patrol the after school hours while he runs a phony youth swimming program with a nice olympic-sized indoor pool. However, the indoor pool proves to be yet another great place to be a cinematographer as Underworld USA winds down. Hats off to Hal Mohr and Sam Fuller to combine to make such a tough film whose memorable moments pop up constantly.

I had seen this movie only once before, and that was 20 years ago. A lot of the concerns of his masterpiece, "The Naked Kiss," are addressed in it. In some ways, it's more horrifying because it is about what it says it's about: the underworld and, more to the point, the USA. "The Naked Kiss" is, to me, a great movie and also a parable.(As to Fuller's "best": In terms of polish, it's probably "Pickup on South Street." That movie has most of his eccentricities but uses major stars and is suspenseful and exciting.) Cliff Robertson does a fine job here as the single-minded man out to avenge his father's killing. Dolores Dorn is touching as the girl from the underworld with whom he becomes involved.The supporting cast could scarcely be better. Paul Duboy is perfect as the slimy Gelo. Richard Rust is shockingly effective as the underworld henchman.But Beatrice Kay is the standout. She plays the tough female who almost always appears in Fuller's films. (Thelma Ritter's Mo, in "Pickup on South Street, is the most poignant.) We believe that this gal is tough. We also believe that she has a soft side.When I was too young to appreciate it, an older friend gave me a paperback book about actresses in b-movies, called "Dames." On the cover is a shot from this film: Dorn and Kay are leaning on each other. Kay looks tough as a guard dog and Dorn has bandages over one eye.The movie is filled with Fuller's most important concerns: At one point, a rooftop swimming pool is pointed out. It is, one character tells another, for the fat cats -- and now and then for underprivileged children. The hypocrisy of some so-called charity is addressed here. So is Fuller's concern for the well-being of children.I don't think this is out on DVD. You need to find it on VHS. It's absolutely a must.

Writer/director Samuel Fuller is not personally attached to the material he presents in Underworld USA in the sense of it being autobiographical. But it is pretty likely, from listening to interviews with him and just from seeing his other work in the noir-esquire realm of motion pictures, that he knew at least the world these characters are in. Or at least he knows what kinds of emotions and what lies underneath certain aspects of lesser pulp fiction- and has a kind of journalistic sensibility that is all his own, telling it like it is from the mean streets of who-knows. It's got an assured eye working the gears, and it by-passes some usual clichés to get at some more interesting bits within some of the conventions. This is in the bones just a tale of revenge, but Fuller wants the little things and moments that make up such a tale, and how the characters can be more realized than might usually be. I liked, for example, early on when Tolly Devlin is 14 and makes a comment to his mother about something in the middle of their conversation- the mother doesn't say anything, but there's a quick, tight close-up of her face to catch the moment. It actually stuck with me longer than I expected, even as the main parts of the scene went along.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.

From its brisk opening, this dark and seamy underworld drama moves like a well-oiled machine, laying out and glorifying Cliff Robertson's revenge tactics to punish the men who killed his father.Not unlike John Boorman's "Point Blank" which also featured an almost cyborg-natured Lee Marvin punishing the bigshot criminal overlords who did him wrong, here the pursuit is more humanized but suffers no slack as Robertson gives an extraordinary performance.With a glinty-eyed, crooked smile and a gleeful look which seems to creep into his face as he torments his victims, Robertson suggests a little of Mel Gibson's instability in the first "Lethal Weapon", but without the looniness. His more understated moments are not only very realistic, but are the epitome of cool. Robertson can definitely smoke cigarettes better than anybody.Fuller's direction is taut, featuring plenty of creative cinematography and a lot of sequences which are far more ahead of their time than the majority of crime films being made around 1961. As always, Fuller manages to tell his story with both hysteria and pathos. This is definitely a must-see for fans of Don Siegel's work or the crime films of Phil Karlson and Anthony Mann. "Underworld USA" could very well share a double bill with John Flynn's "The Outfit" as well. Superb stuff.