Underworld U.S.A. (1961)

After he sees his father being killed by four thugs, a young boy (David Kent, later Cliff Robertson as an adult) sets himself on a path of revenge that will take almost twenty years to see fruition. Subtlety was never director Samuel Fuller's stock-in-trade. This is tabloid film making at its most conspicuous. It's crude, blatant, artificial ... and undeniably effective. It feels like an episode of the 60s TV show, THE UNTOUCHABLES with Larry Gates' District Attorney standing in for Elliot Ness. Fuller keeps punching at you so that you can't help but be pulled in while part of your brain tells you "Resist!" but you can't. Fuller's jackhammer tactics compensates for the generally poor performances especially a miscast Cliff Robertson whose idea of acting tough is to have his lower lip move to the far right or to the far left as he says his lines. As the chippie who falls in love with him, Dolores Dorn is erratically effective but eventually defeated by some of the dialog she's required to say. Only Richard Rust as a mob thug and Beatrice Kay as an aging moll manage to consistently hit the right notes. Still, you have to admire Fuller's cinematic symmetry. I love Sam Fuller but this simply doesn't rank with his best work though it has an inexplicable core of admirers. With Robert Emhardt, Paul Dubov and Gerald Milton.