Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

An ambitious night-club hustler tries to make it big by setting up his own wrestling show. But his incessant cheating and the ruling mob make his plans fall apart. Only his faithful girl stays at his side. Widmark plays a very convincing small-timer, and he gets to show off - at one or two moments he's quite over the top, but still enjoyable. He manages to keep the character likeable, somewhere in between childish naivete and ruthless egomaniac. His character, Fabian, runs into trouble with pretty much everyone in a pretty small universe of the London underworld. Favorite scenes: The wrestling match between the two brutes is amazing to watch, especially knowing that whatever the outcome might be, Fabian would have had it. Another great scene is the exchange between Fabian and the night club owner that he tried to con out of money. (Actually, he is the only one, Fabian didn't con) - Best use of a drumkit in a scene, ever. Good script to look at.

The small-town hooligan Dix is hired for a jewel heist. But the plans of the mastermind Riedenschneider fall apart one after the other, until all Dix has left to run for is his own life. Sterling Hayden's character is an outwardly-hardened but human farmer that tries to return to his farm that his family lost some years ago. But also the other figures are quite interesting: the corrupt lawyer who plays cards with his sick wife and keeps an expensive blonde somewhere. Although not perfectly balanced, at some points the guilt he felt in front of his unsuspecting wife were tangible. Also the commissioner and the detective were not without flaws, even small roles had interesting little scenes. Should re-read the script.

This is a story about a straight, even dull guy with a overwhelming fetish for gunswho  falls in love with a no-good woman that coaxes him into committing robberies. It turns out to be a nice Bonnie-and-Clyde variation. The first part felt heavy-handed and slow. Using a courtroom scene with witnesses, arguing for the lead character's noble character felt strange. Annie's motivation for pushing her husband to a career in crime is thinly explained, although she was the more interesting character in the film. Favorite scene: While her husband robs a bank in the background, Annie chats pointlessly to a policeman standing in front. It is not clear to me why she tries to grab his attention. Great sets: The meat packaging company has some nice shots of hanging meat. Is that the earliest film to use this type of location?

A boy from the slums tries to escape his fate as a criminal but it keeps coming back at him. It was an amazing watch and the depressing feeling already eminent in the beginning got worse during the course of the film. There is the incessant knocking of evil on the door throughout this film. Although the movie itself feels pretty upbeat in a way - which might have to do that most of the characters accept their fate and try to make the best of it. The only thing that sets the hero really apart from the others, is his respect towards other people - even if there is only very little. And although we try to sympathize with him, the scene in the correction facility with the hens shows, that - even though not without hope - he is already pretty far advanced on the path towards doom. (There's a thing with chicken and evil) The evil boy - lustful, revengeful, hateful and enticing at the same time - is definitively a great villain to hate and, funnily enough, I really longed for him t...