Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

evanston_dad Samuel Fuller plays the revenge game in this pulpy gem from 1961.Cliff Robertson plays Tolly, a man who finds out while in prison the identities of the four thugs who beat his father to death when he was a child, and who makes bringing them to justice his first order of business upon his release.The film is as seedy, gritty and dynamic visually as you would expect from Sam Fuller, and it's got a refreshing twist: Robertson is no golden boy, but he is interested in keeping his hands clean after getting out of jail, and so his method of revenge is to find ways of "dealing" with the gangsters without actually killing them himself. It makes for something beyond the run-of-the-mill revenge flick.Robertson is fine, but the star of the film for me was Beatrice Kay, who plays Robertson's blowsy broad of a stand-in mother, the owner of a nightclub who looked out for him when he was a kid and who takes him into her home as an ex-con. She's a female character right out of the Fuller mold: tough as nails but with a heart of gold.Grade: A

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Director Samuel Fuller takes a crack at organized crime in this murder and revenge thriller involving young Tolly Devlin, David Ken & Cliff Robertson when he's all grown up, who was an eye witness to his father's murder.It's not that old man Devlin was an upstanding and law abiding citizen he was a mobster himself but what happened to him, beaten to death by four hoodlums, shouldn't have happened to a mad and rabid dog much less then to a human being. Young Tolly there and then made up his mind that he'll tack down his dad's killers and exact justice on them if that's the last thing he does!It took a while for Tolly to find his father's killers but a stint behind bars, for safe-cracking, brought unexpected results. Recognizing one of his father's killers Vic Farrar, Peter Brocco,in the prison hospital dying from cancer Tolly got him to confess his sins so he can die in peace and with a clean slate when he stands before his creator. With his last dying breath a repetitive Farrar reveal to Tolly those hoods who along with him murdered his old man. Tolly later finds out, through a newspaper headline, that the three other hoods who murdered his dad Gela Smith & Gunther, Paul Dubov Allan Gruener & Gerald Milton, are now the top men in the notorious Earl Connors, Robert Emhardt, crime syndicate.Using his girlfriend-and former hooker- Cuddles, Dolores Dorn, who's life he once saved Tolly gets in on the inside of the Connor's crime syndicate, by posing as a drug pusher, in order to get to those who murdered his father and make them pay dearly! Playing both sides against the middle Tolly works both with the Connor's Mob and the local D.A John Driscoll, Larry Gates, which turned out to be disastrous for him. ***SPOILERS*** Cliff Robertson had a real great time playing Tolly Devlin in the movie using, or copying off, the facial expressions as well as body language of the late great Paul Muni in his blockbuster 1932 gangster epic "Sacrface". Robertson, as well as director Fuller, also did his best to copy the legendary death scene by James Cagney in the 1939 gangland flick "The Roaring Twenties". Besides Cliff Robertson's convincing acting, as a borderline psycho, there's also Beatrice Kay as Tolly's adoptive mom Sandy. As much as Sandy tried she couldn't prevent Tolly from suffering his dad's fate which was preordain the moment he choose to step into his hoodlum father's shoes!

David (Handlinghandel) 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.

ccthemovieman-1 Written, directed and produced by Sam Fuller, this is a tough, straight-talking, no nonsense film noir. This is like a 1940s noir but it's 1961 instead. So, instead of the boxy cars, of the Forties you have long- finned late 1950s automobiles. Otherwise, it''s the same genre.You get the same film noir photography: black-and-white with lots of nighttime shots and a lot of tough characters. I just wish they had at least really likable person to root for, but I didn't find any. The "hero," played well by Cliff Robertson, is a tough, revenge-obsessed guy and that's basically the storyline as he tracks down the hoods who beat up and killed his father.Even though the rest of the cast doesn't have big names, many of the faces are familiar and all are good actors. This is an earlier "Point Blank" film seven years before that came out - same kind of story.Of the women in here, I found Dolores Dorn the most interesting.