Comwayon
A Disappointing Continuation
Taha Avalos
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Kayden
This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
shakspryn
Columbia was known for often having tighter budgets than the other major studios, but this is a worthy effort. One good point is that they use plenty of exteriors, especially with motor boats and on the mysterious island where most of the story takes place.Raft, Foch and Macready all are very good. The feeling of this movie is much like that of "Key Largo", which was around the same time.The pacing of the film is enjoyable, and there are no slow stretches. There is a lot of character development for viewers to appreciate. The villain of the story would be worthy of a James Bond movie! The front door to his mansion is the biggest front door I've ever seen, worthy of a castle. Take special notice of the villain's huge library room--it's a virtuoso display of imaginative and evocative set decoration. The designer had a lot of fun with that! The movie is a fine example of late 1940's film noir. Raft gives a thoughtful, understated performance. Foch is sultry. Well worth seeing.
MartinHafer
This is an interesting film for its supporting cast. If you see the film, look for Gloria Henry (Dennis' mom from the TV show "Dennis the Menace") and Will Geer. You don't see a young Will Geer in many films, as he was blacklisted not too long after he made this film due to his very liberal politics (even by Hollywood standards). As for Henry, it's tough to recognize her at first, as she is very fast-talking and a bit fresh--and quite cute. She just doesn't look or act much like Dennis' mom! The film stars George Raft during his 'wooden phase'. After he was no longer a tough-guy with Warner Brothers (in the 30s and early 40s), he settled into a long string of much more sedate roles--playing heroic types with very little energy in his performances. It was like the tough persona was in slow-motion in these later films--not exactly unpleasant but with very little of the bravura and intensity of his earlier roles...and a bit wooden. You may not have noticed this, but I've seen enough of his films to see there is a clear difference--and many of the films were made by second-tier studios such as Columbia as well as some UK productions. I noticed another reviewer said Raft is "a bit bland at times" and this is clearly the case in his post-war films--they just lack zip! This film finds the ex-con Johnny Allegro (Raft) getting tangled up in a killing, as he appears to kill a cop. However, after he makes his escape with the dame (Nina Foch), you learn that the shooting was a ruse--and Apollo's gun loaded with blanks as he's working with Federal agents! Why? Because they wanted someone to infiltrate the criminal empire run by a creepy and probably sexually impotent man (George Macready). Can Apollo get to in good with the gang? Will he be killed by the gang? Can he, somehow, still get the girl? Will the audience by a 54 year-old man as an action hero?Overall, this is a pleasant little noir film from Columbia. While it's not great film noir and Raft has definitely done better stuff, it's a good but rather slow-paced gangster film. With a bit more energy and an actor who didn't appear a bit old for the role, it might have been a bit better. But as for Macready, it's another excellent menacing performance--as no one could do BAD quite like him!
sol1218
**SPOILERS** Tough guy George Raft is fugitive from the law Johnny Rock who's now on the lamb as the genteel and soft spoken hotel florist Johnny Allgero trying to live his life on the straight and narrow. That's until Johnny runs into, while delivering flowers, mystery woman Glenda Chapman, Nina Foch, who's being tracked down by the US Treasury Department. Not at first knowing what he's getting himself into, in his involvement with Glenda, Johnny is soon contacted by US Treasury Agent Schulty, Will Green, who fills him in on all the details.It seems that Glenda's husband Morgan Vallin, George MacReady, together with his Commie secret agents is in the process of destroying the US economy by passing off as much as a half billion dollars in counterfeit money while playing the horses at the local, Hialeah & Gulfstream, Florida racetracks. This gets real serious, which is why the US Government is now taking a keen interest in it, in that Vallin is in fact, even though it's not mentioned in the movie, a paid Soviet Agent himself who's working for the NKVD to undermine with his two Soviet controllers Vetch & Gote, Ivan Triesdault & Walter Rode, the US currency exchange by devaluation the US Dollar in flooding the country, as well as the world, with fake US currency! It's now Johnny's job, like it or not, to stop Vallin and his Commie friends from passing hundreds of millions of fake US dollars through racetracks and casinos by getting in good with him and finding out where he has the phony money stashed! If Johnny succeeds he's get a pardon from the President that will have his sentence of ten years behind bars, at Sing Sing Prison, reduced to time served!Johnny using his wit charm as well as tough guy good looks soon get's Glenda to see things his way in going against her scare-faced husband Vallin and his gang who was keeping her in the dark about what his sinister motives are. Glenda thought that he was just a run of the mill Hollywood type gangster not a Communist Agent planing to destroy her, as well as 150 million other Americans, way of life!Even though George Raft was in his mid fifties at the time he did look and act convincingly, as Johnny Allegro, as the no BS sh*t-kicking though guy that we all got to know and love in his younger days in the many previous gangster films he stared in. We learned earlier in the movie that Johnny while on the lamb from the law did his patriotic duty by joining the O.S.S, predecessor to the C.I.A, and US paratroopers, while in his late 40's, to fight the Japs in the Pacifc! That despite the fact that Johnny was a fugitive from the law at the time that he did it!
silverscreen888
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.
