That was an excellent one.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A bit of an odd duck of a Newspaper noir. Cy Endfield's film begins promisingly with big city muck, but then detours into the New England countryside. It's more than a bit jarring in tone, as the small town 'quaintness' takes over much of the middle section of the film. Dan Duryea is a noir icon, but, he comes on a bit too strong as the scheming newspaper man (Gale Storm's character should have called the cops and put a restraining order on him).Things pick up when a black maid is falsely accused of murder (not a spoiler). All of a sudden, the movie returns to its crime roots, and it becomes more than a subtle McCarthy red baiting tale (indeed, several of the filmmakers were soon ensnared, including DaSilva and Endfield). Herbert Marshall is fine as is the full supporting cast, but Howard DaSilva steals the show as a jovial mobster - the more he smiles, the more menacing he becomes.UNDERWORLD STORY is a mixed bag, but still effective enough in the end, even if the climactic scene is bit too brief. One of the other oddities is that the accused (Mary Anderson) is not only an obviously white actress, but, given precious little screen time. It's been written that the Red Scare aspect gave UNDERWORLD STORY a taint that kept it from being more seen over the years (Warner Classics has re-issued it, and TCM runs the pretty good-looking transfer; a bit noisy on the sound end, though). Would make a good double bill with the similar superior Robert Wise film CAPTIVE CITY (1952) with John Forsythe as a small town newspaper man batting the mob.

Howard Da Silva was underused. He appears briefly in the first few minutes, then he doesn't reappear until the 70 minute mark (it's only a 91 minute movie). I also thought the scriptwriters delayed Marshall's appearance in the film unnecessarily-- and I get that they were establishing the relationship between Duryea and Storm-- but the murder plot really does not get underway until after this long prologue plays out. And the relationship between Duryea and Storm gets seriously backgrounded in the last third of the movie, so what was the point of introducing a romantic subplot only to drop it?At times I thought the casting of Gar Moore as Marshall's son was off. Clearly, he was the film's weakest actor. I noticed he had done a series of films in Italy in the 40s before signing with Universal (where he undoubtedly met Duryea), and maybe his acting style was a bit unsteady because he was not used to working with these kinds of actors. The film was obviously shot on a lower budget than most studio productions and its cheapness is evident in the newspaper office scenes which seem to have been shot in some warehouse. But the use of black and white film and lighting that cast shadows on the proceedings to add a level of depth worked to cleverly conceal the cheap looking sets. It helped tremendously when they filmed outdoors in the streets and at the cemetery, which seemed quite authentic. What I loved most about THE UNDERWORLD STORY was its deliberately slow pacing. If this was a studio B film, the narrative would have been rushed and crammed into 60 minutes. But because they have stretched this out to an hour and a half, we get a lot of extra pauses and reflections and insights to the characters and their motivations. The dialogue was poor in some spots, but pros like Herbert Marshall and Howard Da Silva kept it interesting-- if not for the words they were uttering but for the reactions they were generating and the careful tense stares that seem to go so well with this kind of story.

The more I watch classic films, the more I discover what a great year 1950 was in the movie business. Here's another good film, and one many people are probably unfamiliar with. This one revolves around the newspaper business.Dan Duryea, as usual, is interesting as "Mike Reese," a bad guy-turned-good guy journalist. He is joined in the cast by Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm (one of the great names in show business and who will forever be "My Little Margie" to those of us who were around in the '50s), Howard Da Silva and Michael O'Shea. Of the above-mentioned, Da Silva was the most fascinating, as the brutal mob boss "Carl Durham." He only had a minor role, but some of his lines were outstanding and his role was memorable. Da Silva was a great actor for film noirs. This isn't really a noir, but it's close. Marshall was just fine as the newspaper owner.The film was not kind to the newspaper business, so some media-minded film critics (who probably had columns in daily papers) didn't like this film for that reason. Too bad. They should have liked it, since it had Left Wing written all over it, with several Liberal themes and favorite catch-phrases such as "witch hunts" (one of their all-time favorites).Nonetheless, it's a powerful film and well-acted.

Dan Duryea is one of the best actors out there, able to play the slimiest slime-ball and the staunchest of heroes. Here he does a little of both and you're never sure which side he's on. The movie starts as a Noir Crime Thriller, then becomes a 30's-style social drama, then switches back to noir and crime -- but it never loses its style, its verve and its pace. Constantly fun and involving, due to Duryea's movable morals -- and to Stanley Cortez's gorgeous black-and-white cinematography. Director/Writer Endfield does a fine job keeping things going, setting up interesting shots and corralling a cast that's great down to every tiny part. Bad Guy Howard Da Silva chews the scenery with relaxed gusto and is a joy to watch. Highly recommended.