Claudio Carvalho When the American Treasure Department finds that a gang in Los Angeles is making false currency, agents Dennis O'Brien (Dennis O'Keefe) and Tony Genaro (Alfred Ryder) are assigned to investigate the counterfeit gang using the identities of Vannie Harrigan and Tony Galvani in Detroit. Along their investigation they join the gang of mobsters trying to discover who the boss behind the scheme is."T-Men" is a great thriller labelled of film-noir. The documentary style is interesting and there are surprising twists along the story. The performances are great and the direction of Anthony Mann is top notch. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Moeda Falsa" ("False Coin")

blanche-2 The documentary style film was popular after the war, with a serious voice narrating the action. A lot of these films had to do with crime, sometimes where the government was involved. In this film, "T-Men," Dennis O'Keefe, Alfred Ryder, and Wallace Ford star. O'Keefe and Ryder go undercover to break a gang of counterfeiters.As a noir, this holds up well. For one thing, it's directed by Anthony Mann, who had a great feel for this type of film. Shot in black and white, it's gritty, it's violent, and it makes great use of light and shadow, courtesy of cinematographer John Alton, another master at this type of film.The acting is okay, with Wallace Ford having a showier role than the two treasury agents.My mother always liked Alfred Ryder on the many television shows in which he appeared; in the '80s, he and his sister, Olive Deering, an actress beloved by Tennessee Willias, often ate at the same restaurant I did. Alfred wasn't crazy about the service. He once said, "There are no more real waiters. Only actors." Since he worked until he died, I'd say he was one of the lucky ones who never saw a table he had to wait on.

robert-temple-1 Anthony Mann here delivers another one of his superior noir films. The much-underrated leading man Dennis O'Keefe is terrific here. He is like a taller and tougher Alan Ladd, without the smile. This film is one of the 'investigation procedural' films of the period, complete with patronising narrator who explains to us what people we are watching are doing. 'T-Men' seems a corny title, but it is not about cartoon characters, 'T' stands for Treasury, and this is a tale of United States Treasury secret service agents infiltrating and busting a massive counterfeit ring in California. There are some crisp lines, and some lateral thinking in the story: 'If we are investigating Los Angeles, we will start in Detroit to avoid suspicion'. The story is based on real Treasury cases, and was made with the Treasury's full cooperation. We certainly learn a lot about paper quality (percentage of cotton, percentage of linen), engraved plates, photo processes, and we are almost ready to start our own presses tomorrow, except of course that crime does not pay, at least when Dennis O'Keefe is around. The next year, Anthony Mann would make 'Raw Deal', so he kept getting better. There was always plenty of tension with that Mann on the job.

MisterWhiplash T-Men might be one of the great film-noirs of the period- certainly a high point for Anthony Mann who already has Raw Deal as one of the masterpieces of the period- if only for one fatal flaw: the narration. While it would probably work well enough in a pulp magazine or wherever a story like this would turn up in print (it seems just about made for it, though despite the presence of the "real" treasury department officials it's fictional), the narrator, who comes off like an even more dead-pan version (and of course less subtly satirical) of the VO in the Killing, disrupts the flow of the story where it could be just excellent without it. Little things pop up that could be filmed just was well, finding out the clues and the details and not overrun with the ham-fisted voice of authority. If it was even done in shorter bits interspersed, fine. But as it is, it's the only big letdown of the movie, making it dated (at least more than usual).And yet, this doesn't detract from what should be a must-see for those who want to immerse themselves in a creative visual style. The team-up of Mann and his DP John Alcott was a match made in shadow-heaven, and their collaboration brings out such a strong style that it's hard to look away. This, plus the performances from Dennis O'Keefe, Wallace Ford, Charles McGrayw, make it a firecracker of a thriller, involving a story of two federal treasury agents out for a big sting with a nest of counterfeiters in Los Angeles and Detroit. When Man directs certain scenes, they pop like you want one of these 'old-school' hard boiled flicks to go. The violence actually isn't very cheap either, at least for the period, and it's a big bang where another director might've gone for the limp whimper. The villains are tough, but like any good soldier undercover the hand is always a little slicker, one step ahead. When it's at its best, T-Men is like the super-cool grandfather to the likes of the Departed.If only for the preachiness, and that stupid voice (who, apparently for good reason, is uncredited), I'd recommend it as whole-heartedly as Raw Deal. As it stands, it's still very good, with the kinds of double-crosses and moments of tension (i.e. the lead-up to the Schemer's demise) that rank with the finest the genre has. Bottom line, you're bound to find one or two of the compositions in T-Men right smack-dab in the examples of textbook film-noir lighting and design: maximum impact of B-movie reaching art. 8.5/10