The picture starts with Nick (this is last movie of John Garfield ) and his colleague Al Molin (Norman Lloyd) stage a payroll holdup . Al is murdered, along with a police officer . Nick hides out in a plunge , and into a locker hides the robbed cash ; later on , he meets Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters) . They go out from a public pool and return to her apartment and then Nick forces her family , father (Wallace Ford , John Ford's brother) , mother (Selena Royle) and child to hide him from the police chase .
This enjoyable film contains a relentless manhunt , thrills , suspense , violence and some elements of Noir cinema . Most actors , screenwriters , director were pursued by American government during ominous period of Mccarthismo. Interesting writing credits , written under pseudonyms , by Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler , front Guy Endore ; being based on a novel by Sam Ross . Very good acting by John Garfield as a violent and desperado delinquent . Garfield had a sad as well fruitful life , as he signed a contract with Warner Brothers, who changed his name to John Garfield. Won enormous praise for his role of the cynical Mickey Borden in Four Daughters (1938). Appeared in similar roles throughout his career despite his efforts to play varied parts , being his best film : Body and soul . Active in liberal political and social causes, he found himself embroiled in Communist scare of the late 1940s. Though he testified before Congress that he was never a Communist, his ability to get work declined. While separated from his wife, he succumbed to long-term heart problems, dying suddenly in the home of a woman friend at 39. His funeral was mobbed by thousands of fans, in the largest funeral attendance for an actor since Rudolph Valentino.
Atmosheric and appropriate cinematography in black and white by James Wong Howe who along with John Alton and Nicolas Musuraka are the main cameramen of Noir genre . Thrilling as well as evocative musical score by the classic Franz Waxman . The motion picture was well directed by John Berry . Director John Berry and co-scripter Hugo Butler's names were removed from the credits for a time after release, due to the blacklisting of supposed Communist sympathizers at the time. Assistant director Emmett Emerson is thus often credited as the film's director . Berry Was named as a member of the Communist Party by Hollywood 10 member Edward Dmytryk in Dmytryk's 1951 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, when the blacklisted director "named names" to revive his Hollywood career and effect a return from exile in Europe. After Dymytrk's testimony, the formerly disgraced director, who had served a prison term for defying HUAC in 1947, was allowed to resume his Hollywood career and direct movies in America, but Berry was blacklisted and went into exile in France. Ironically, Berry had directed the documentary The Hollywood Ten . Berry directed interesting films , such as 1955 Headlines of Destruction , 1949 Tension 1949 , 1948 Casbah ,1946 Cross My Heart and 1946 From This Day Forward , among others .
