LeonLouisRicci This is an Obscure Film-Noir that Should be Better Known because it is Certainly a Strange Brew of Religion, Revenge, and Noir. Brutal at Times the Film is Punctuated with Messages from the Bible and the Look is Acutely Dark and Shadowed with Iconic Flourishes.George Raft is at His One Note Best as He goes on a Man-Hunt Looking for the Killer of His Priest Brother. The Gideon Bible Itself is the McGuffin and Plays an Ending Twist of its Own. Raymond Burr is a Sleazy, Nasty and Violent Thug along with His Partner in Crime Henry Morgan (who was never dirtier).Although the Preaching at Times is a Heavy Load of Thumping it Never Quite goes Over the Top and Film-Noir Wins Out. A Couple of Times Raft Stops the Sermonizing with a Speech of His Own that Keeps Things where They Ought to be..."Save that eyewash for your Sunday Sermon".What a bit of Nastiness this is. Virginia Mayo doesn't do much Except Stand Around and Look Pretty, but the Rest of the Cast is in Top Noir Mode. It is a Grimy One that Deserves the Attention of Film-Noir Fans and Lovers of the Dark Side that Only these Low-Budget Movies could Pull Off. You Won't Find a Noir this Quirky or Bizarre. Note...Robert Aldridge is the second unit Director.

John Downes I thinks this film stinks, right from the opening titles dominated by a dreadful derivative score from Dmitri Tiomkin. Did nobody tell him that the Gregorian chants for the Mass for the Dead are so nineteenth century? Or that Berlioz and Liszt flogged it death (so to speak) a hundred years before? And as for that Ave Maria stuff, it's just sick-making. Barf.I was going to give this tripe three out of ten, but then I recalled Raymond Burr as a pretty good bad guy and upped it to five. He is the sole redeeming feature of this very poor movie. (Is it a spoiler to say Raymond Burr plays a bad guy in this? I'm assuming not, he was making a career out of such roles by then).But as for George Raft... oh dear oh dear. How did a no-talent bum like that ever make it in the movie business? Is he even slightly credible in any of the roles he plays? The day before watching this I saw Background to Danger (1943) and I thought to myself is this guy always this bad? Now that's another poor film almost redeemed by the top notch supporting cast (Lorre, Greenstreet), but the dead weight of Mr Raft is just too much for them to carry. As I said on one of the message boards, the fairies at the bottom of my garden would eat this so-called tough guy up for breakfast and then call for their porridge.The saccharine ending had me reaching for the sick-bag too. I can't blame that on Mr Raft, that's solely down to the production team.Unless you're a Raymond Burr fan, this film is just a waste of time.

sol1218 (Spoilers) It's when his kid brother US Army Chaplin Captain Jess Torno, Arthur Franz, was found shot at the hotel he was staying at that Johnny Torno, George Raft, owner of Torno Fraight Lines made it his first order of business to bring Jess' killer to justice. There was something that Jess with his last dying breath told Johnny who was at the murder scene that it's the bible in his hotel room, that disappeared from sight, that holds the answer to what happened and then kicked off for good.Determined to find Jess' murderer Johnny didn't realize that the person who was behind the crime was a lot closer to him at he could have ever imagined. As we all saw at the start of the movie Johnny's former book-keeper Rick Cherney played by a pre liposuction 300 plus pounds Raymond Burr, whom Johnny caught embezzling his business, who was behind Jess' murder. It was Cherney who hired ex-con Rocky, Harry Morgan, who was in the can, San Quentin Prison, together with him to gun Jess down as an act of revenge against Johnny. The big mystery in all this is what did Cherney use to pay Rocky to do the hit-job for him? In Cherney being dead broke, without a job or any other means of support, at the time to give Rocky the contract to knock off Jess?Looking for the Gideon Bible that was in the hotel-room with Jess at the time of his murder Johnny recruits pretty Carla North,Virginia Mayo, who needs the money and who was in the same hotel-room Jess was in after his death to track down anyone else who spent the night at hotel room #812 after Jess was killed and could have possibly taken the bible. Johnny's obsession with Jess' hotel bible gets more and more ridicules as the movie goes on in that it seemed to have some kinds of supernatural or Godly powers towards anyone who came in contact with it. The fact that everyone was stealing the bible from its rightful owner, the hotel, didn't seem to matter at all. All that mattered was that it changed the lives of those who stole it for the better even the hot headed and thug like Johnny Torno! As for Cherney he tries to and does, Johnny has a soft spot for him, to get his old job back at Johnny's freight lines trucking company. Which leads to Cherney getting the jump on Johnny's actions him in finding out who's his brother's killer. With everything going his way and as it turns out that Jess didn't implicated him in Jess' murder Cherney is still worried about Rocky, by not having any money to pay him off, fingering him for the crime. ****Major Major Spoiler*** This leads to one of the most outrageous and mind boggling scenes in the entire movie where after Cherney does Rocky in by throwing him off a speeding passenger train he, like Jason in the Friday the 13th movie series, comes back from the dead! With him barley alive and breathing Rocky after walking or staggering back to his hotel room, where both Johnny and Cherney as well as the police just happen to be at, miles from his accident site he's still able to finger Cherney as the person who paid him to do in Jess before he's finally, with a bullet from Cherney's gun, put out of his misery! This scene alone is worth the price of admission in not only having Rocky survived his near fatal accident but come back, black & blue with a number of broken bones ribs and a cracked skull, and be lucid enough to point Cherney out! And on top of all that with Cherney coincidentally just happening to be there and end up, after waiting for Rocky to point him out, not only kill him but also admit instead of keeping his mouth shut that he had paid Rocky to murder Jess! This reminded me of the Perry Mason TV series that Burr starred in where he-as defense attorney Perry Mason-had people admit to crimes that they by keeping quite could have easily gotten away with. In the end all turns out to be well and good in Johnny finally seeing the light and when he did have the chance not do in the fleeing Cherney a hesitant and Johnny instead let the supernatural or a bolt of electricity, as Jess advised him in the magic hotel Gideon Bible, do it for him.P.S Check out Johnny's and later Clara's Chinese house-boy at his San Francisco luxury suite Vincent played by former Charlie Chan's goofy #2 son Victor Sen Young.

AlanLinell How satisfying! What better casting than George Raft as ANGRY MAN?? The Lord may say: "Vengeance is mine," but Georgie says "the heck with that noise -- this one's MY baby!" He rampages through a multi-state search-and-destroy mission in his quest to find the message hidden in the Gideon Bible that was in his brother's room when he was killed. Raymond Burr and Harry Morgan are his Mutt and Jeff antagonists: The irony of course being that as he fervently seeks the Bible, he fervently disregards it. But with a little Mayo on the side, things turn spiritual on Georgie, forcing him to listen to The Man before he can do a Godzilla on Godzie's old pal Burr. This is George Raft vs. The Lord, and it's anybody's match! Great fun all around, and there are even moral lessons, if you're into moral lessons, and intense but effective music to learn by, in the bargain. If you can find it, it's worth an hour and a half in your busy schedule, and you might even end up spiritually uplifted -- but stay out from under big trucks -- they're heavy!