Review of Underworld U.S.A. (1961) by Daryl C — 11 Aug 2008

Tough and uncompromising Sam Fuller movie, with one of those intricate revenge plots that were common in gangster and mob thrillers of the 1950s; this movie came near the end of the cycle in 1961, and it's also interesting because Fuller uses the schema from his PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953) to provide the story with its romantic underpinnings.

With Fuller, it's not so much that he's unsentimental as he swings through extremes, so that the sentimentality is caught up short by the in-your-face brutality. A typical example of his approach is the scene where Dolores Dorn and Cliff Robertson discuss getting married: it's done in such an off-hand way that any sentiment is held at bay.