Shakedown (1950)
Jack Early is a photographer who will stop at nothing to climb his way to the very top of the success ladder. On the strength of his sheer tenacity, he gets a job with a major newspaper, and it's not long before he's made a name for himself by charming a notorious crime boss, Nick Palmer, into allowing himself to be photographed. Palmer takes him under his wing, but Early decides to bite the hand that feeds him and sets Palmer and another crime boss, Colton, against one another.
- Joseph Pevney
- George Lollier
- Joseph E. Kenney
- Pat Betz
- Nat Dallinger
- Don Martin
- Martin Goldsmith
- Alfred Lewis Levitt
Rating: 6.1/10 by 19 users
Alternative Title:
Reportage fatal - FR
Country:
United States of America
Language:
English
Runtime: 01 hour 20 minutes
Budget: $0
Revenue: $0
Plot Keyword: infidelity, robbery, san francisco, california, photographer, gangster, despair, blackmail, seduction, opportunist, film noir, murder, mobster, extortion, photograph, newspaper man
Talk about hoist by your own petard! "Jack" (Howard Duff) is an aspiring photo-journalist who manages to get newspaper editor "David" (Bruce Bennett) to take him on for a week. His next task is to stay employed, and to that end he manages to convince "Nick" (Brian Donlevy) - a local "businessman", to pose for a front page photo. This latter man takes a bit of a shine to "Jack" and gives him an opportunity to put away one of his criminal competitors "Colton" (Lawrence Tierney). There's a few grand in it for him, but he gets greedy - he keeps the negative of a shot he takes after a robbery, and submits a less definitive photo to his boss. Next he blackmails "Colton" for $25,000 else the real negative will end up with his paper and the police! What now ensues sees him try to play both men off each other whilst irritating his loved-up editor all as he rather cruelly plays with the affections of his sponsor at the newspaper "Ellen" (Peggy Dow) and tries the same with the wife of "Nick" - the considerably more savvy "Nita" (Anne Vernon) before his house of cards starts to look distinctly shaky! This benefits from a tightly knit cast with a solid story and some decent dialogue - and from guy that it's fairly easy to dislike! It's well paced and ends with an appropriate wise-crack that rather sums up "Jack" nicely.
