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.

 A provincial judge is to preside over a tribunal judging second-row Nazis in Nuremberg when public interest in the trials have stopped. The film strikes a fine balance between documenting the mood of the American occupation, the German population living in the ruins and pushing the story forward. Although highly entertaining and very impressively acted I felt that the German characters (all of them) were a bit too exaggerated for my taste. Burt Lancaster was interesting to watch, with his minimal reactions he somehow got me to sympathize with his character. So, morally, the judge's decision caught me unguarded - maybe the script could have played on that a bit more. There were some great camera pans that were nicely synchronized with the action. Not Dreyer, but close at some places.