Underworld USA (1961)

Film: Underworld USA (1961)

Stars: Cliff Robertson, Dolores Dorn, Beatrice Kay, Paul Dubov

Director: Samuel Fuller

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

American noir post-Touch of Evil generally struggled to find something new to say.  The genre had been going for two decades at that point with relatively little changes to the formula other than increasingly obvious sex & violence, and after Welles basically perfected the genre in 1958, there wasn't a lot more to say until the run of 1970's when a post-Watergate America was briefly more intrigued by the prospect of movies like Chinatown and Night Moves (where no one trusted anyone).  But noir, now in the form of a type of early neo-noir, existed in the 1960's even if it wasn't a very big deal, and one of the films from that era that generally gets tagged onto the "best of" lists of the genre is Underworld USA starring Cliff Robertson & Dolores Dorn.  We're going to kick off the four "neo-noir" films we will do to finish up June with this picture, one that borrows more from the movies of the 1930's than the 1940's to get through its subject.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a tale of revenge, with Tolly Devlin witnessing his father's brutal murder as a child, and after ending up in prison (and now an adult, played by Robertson) he comes across one of the men who killed his father, gets the names of the other three men, and kills him (to be fair, he was about to die anyway so at least at this point there's a redemption arc remaining even if they don't take it).  He finds out they are all high-level gangsters, and so he works his way into their organization, becoming an informant for the police as well as romancing (though not treating very well) a money-runner named Cuddles (Dorn).  He kills the men responsible for his father's death, but in the meantime sells his soul to the mob, and in order to save Cuddles' life, ends up sacrificing his own.

The movie, as I mentioned, is much more akin to the 1930's than the 1940's.  While there are elements of noir here (namely there's a beautiful blonde woman named Cuddles, which Raymond Chandler himself would've been proud of creating), it's far closer to the gangster films of the early 1930's, with lots of disposable characters and women playing a largely cursory role in the plot (whereas in traditional noir, women are a key focus, which is why I like it).  Gangster films can be good, but they aren't my jam, especially pre-Godfather, and it shows here in the way that there's not enough personality to the side men in Robertson's life.

Overall, I wasn't a fan of this picture.  This was probably somewhat groundbreaking for giving a realistic depiction of how hard it was to go against the mob (in 1961, that would've still been a big deal), with the police hapless to help people like Tolly & Cuddles when they provided evidence.  But the acting is a bit wooden save for Beatrice Kay, doing her best Thelma Ritter impression as Tolly's mother-figure, and while I liked the bleakness of the film (that's part of what makes noir so mesmerizing), it didn't give us enough to actually care about Tolly's journey into hell.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, Nightcrawler