This gritty Samuel Fuller Post-Noir has a teenage hood trained by his hoodlum father while raised by a bar-owning lush with a heart of gold, setting up your basic revenge tale since the kid witnessed his old man beaten and killed in a shadow-filled alley by four men - but only actually sees one of them...
And thus grows into a contentedly crooked Cliff Robertson, whose Tolly Devlin, serving time, finds that one recognized killer dying in jail, of natural causes, but not before naming names so that, when Tully gets out, the body count vengeance trail begins...
Sadly, this intriguing set-up gets distracted by those titular UNDERWORLD crime-bosses, making deals that matter very little to the overall plotline: What should have remained tighter to Robertson's dogged perspective loses steam, focus...
Yet is made up for NOT by his character, dealing with melodramatic (and somewhat pointless) ingenue Dolores Dorn, looked-after by experienced surrogate-mother Beatrice Kay (aptly channeling Thelma Ritter from Fuller's PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET), whose creepy doll collection adds to the director's surreal 1960's arthouse-aesthetic that'd continue with SHOCK THERAPY and THE NAKED KISS...
But the scene-stealer is a coldly handsome thug/shooter played by Richard Rust as Gus, chain-smoking while killing left and right, narrowing-down what would have been a far less effective crime-thriller without him -- a reminder to the audience of what's the unapologetic heartless of the matter.
And thus grows into a contentedly crooked Cliff Robertson, whose Tolly Devlin, serving time, finds that one recognized killer dying in jail, of natural causes, but not before naming names so that, when Tully gets out, the body count vengeance trail begins...
Sadly, this intriguing set-up gets distracted by those titular UNDERWORLD crime-bosses, making deals that matter very little to the overall plotline: What should have remained tighter to Robertson's dogged perspective loses steam, focus...
Yet is made up for NOT by his character, dealing with melodramatic (and somewhat pointless) ingenue Dolores Dorn, looked-after by experienced surrogate-mother Beatrice Kay (aptly channeling Thelma Ritter from Fuller's PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET), whose creepy doll collection adds to the director's surreal 1960's arthouse-aesthetic that'd continue with SHOCK THERAPY and THE NAKED KISS...
But the scene-stealer is a coldly handsome thug/shooter played by Richard Rust as Gus, chain-smoking while killing left and right, narrowing-down what would have been a far less effective crime-thriller without him -- a reminder to the audience of what's the unapologetic heartless of the matter.