89 minute running time … Columbia movie … pretty gritty and violent for its day … suicide, homicide, blackmail, car bombs, threatening a policeman’s family, prostitution, torture, burning people with cigarettes, throwing pots of coffee in their face, strangulation, corruption … it’s pretty intense. The only problem I had was that Glenn Ford doesn’t come across as that much of a tough guy. Lee Marvin is a good bad guy, Gloria Grahame is good as a gangster’s dame, the head honcho Italian gangster was good. The story wasn’t bad, the pacing wasn’t bad, Fritz Lang directed, I don’t know why I’m hesitating to make it green-go … I guess I will temporarily until I see more movies from 1953. John Farr recommended it, calling it “brutal and in-your-face,” and he’s right.

You couldn't plant enough flowers around here to kill the smell.