1 review
This is a heart-rending story that would have been almost unbearable if it were not for the exceptionally poignant performance of Edward G. Robinson as an old man getting caught in a web of urban corruption. Sam Jaffe's brief but equally upsetting performance is on the same level, and it's like a nightmare of helplessness of old age. At the same time, a character like this wouldn't fit anyone but Robinson - he made many such characters before, but they all mount up to this one, lost in a world that because of his old age refuses to take him seriously or even believe him, since he alone knows the truth but can't understand it or make it credible, since it is too evil for human understanding. Even his son (Martin Balsam) ultimately fails him, while the end comes as a surprise, since it should have turned another way. It's a great story, all the characters are excellent, and the events and circumstances of this asphalt jungle of a hostile city environment are quite typical of 1970 - that's how the world was in those days, with psychiatry as the infallible authority of human life. Although it is very late, this is still a noir and one of the very darkest as such. When you try to settle after the film you feel very old and lost, like the too convincing old honest Robinson.