Richard Dominguez
A Great Action Cop Movie ... Lots Of Suspense And A Thriller As Well ... Broderick Crawford Turns In A Great Performance As Officer Damico ... Followed By A Great Performance By Ernest Borgnine As Joe Castro The Number 2 Man In The Waterfront Rackets ... Damico Makes Friends With A Dock Worker (Tom Clancy) Who Isn't Whom He Appears To Be ... This Is So Early In Charles Bronson's Career He Appears On The Screen For Less Than 2 Minutes ... A Bit Of A Mystery As Everyone Tries To Find My Big ...A Good Old Fashioned Cop Movie With A Thrill A Minute Thrown In ... Great Performances, Solid Story And A Bit Of Humor (Damico's Sarcasm) Turns This Into A No Let Down Movie ...
LeonLouisRicci
When the Decade of the 1950's Kicked in, Film-Noir Purists are asked to Except the Conceit of New Wrinkles such as Upbeat Endings and Authorities (Police and Government) as the Saviours and Benevolent Overseers of Mankind. In this Underseen, Underrated, and Overlooked Entry Broderick Crawford Delivers some Stinging Zingers and is a Perfectly Cast Noir Hero that is a Burly, Brawling, Beefy, Mountainous Man that is Able to go Undercover to Ferret Out the Mob Boss and can Hold His Own Amongst the Equally Ugly and Street Level Gangsters and Longshoremen.After a Killer Opening Drenched in the Dark City Milieu of Encroaching Buildings and Shadowy Streets, Crawford's Police Superiors Order Him to Narc Up and Send Him into the Lion's Den. There is a Rogue's Gallery of Now Familiar Faces and a Blue Collar World of Corruption Filled with Fisticuffs, Frame-Ups, and Seedy Bars.The Dialog, Character Actors, Direction by Robert Parrish, and the Noir Photography with Gloomy and Dilapidated Sets, a Twist at the End, and an Overall Depressing Tone make this Fifties Film-Noir a Must See.
boblipton
The title of this review says it all. In 1951, who knew who Ernest Borgnine, Richard Kiley and Charles Buchinsky were? But in this Columbia noir, made after Broderick Crawford became an unlikely star because of ALL THE KING'S MEN has the lead going undercover to investigate racketeering on the docks, we see how good actors can overcome a basically decent script overloaded with 'snappy' dialog, cheap sets and unexceptional directing. The actors are, frankly, amazing and this is as good as a movie can get with a major flaw like this -- ace DP Joseph Walker can't do much with the studio sets and back projection, but he makes a good effort with a highly mobile camera.
woodway77
Consistent with its simplistic title, "The Mob" is a straightforward cops vs. mob story starring the reliably tough Broderick Crawford. He goes undercover among the longshoremen after being 'suspended' from his police-detective job. He's trying to find the big cheese controlling extortion and payoffs on the docks, and meets up with several shady (or actually criminal) characters along the way. Crawford is his usual no-nonsense self, working his way into the scene with an abrasive coating over a good-cop personality. Neville Brand and Ernest Borgnine have a few scenes as mobsters, and Crawford's dockside pal is played by Richard Kiley. The only confusing part for me was that the TCM description stated that Crawford's character goes "from California to New Orleans" to discover the mob crime, but as far as I can tell, he leaves "town" (wherever that is) briefly, then returns by ship in his undercover mode to the place where he started. Overall, a good-quality crime-fighter movie, worth watching on Saturday night for a B/W movie fan.
AD
