Based on Ferguson Findley's novel "Waterfront", this crime thriller about an undercover police investigation is gritty, fast-moving and well-written with some wonderfully sharp dialogue and a well constructed plot that features interesting characters and plenty of surprises. It also doesn't pull any punches in the way that it depicts the hard and often violent conditions experienced by the longshoremen who have to work on a city's waterfront where corruption and rackets are rife.
Off-duty Detective Sergeant Johnny Damico (Broderick Crawford) is walking home one rainy night when he witnesses a shooting by a man who produces a police badge and identifies himself as a Lieutenant from another precinct before rushing off to call for assistance. Damico initially tries to help the victim but when the shooter doesn't return, becomes suspicious and telephones his own precinct to report the incident. Damico gets reprimanded for being taken in by the killer and threatened with the loss of his pension. His senior officer, Lieutenant Banks (Otto Hulett) explains that the murder victim was due to testify before a grand jury investigating crime on the waterfront and the shooter is believed to be the man in charge of the waterfronts rackets.
Damico is offered the chance to redeem himself by going undercover as a dock worker so that he can investigate how the rackets work and identify the top man. The tough cop readily accepts the offer and an article that's placed in a local newspaper to announce that he's been suspended from duty is accompanied by a photograph of someone else. He's also given a new identity as Tim Flynn, a New Orleans petty criminal who's looking for work on the docks. Damico rents a room at "The Royal" hotel on the waterfront and soon befriends a longshoreman named Tom Clancy (Richard Kiley) and the hotel bartender, Smoothie (Matt Crowley).
Damico witnesses rackets such as workers being compelled to donate to a phony collection for an allegedly-injured co-worker in order to be given two days work and having gained the impression that someone called Castro is influential on the waterfront, uses his boss' name to get work and is given a job driving a forklift. Culio (Frank DeKova), the driver that he replaces, gets very resentful and soon after Damico (aka Flynn) comes in for some unwelcome attention from the seemingly crooked Joe Castro (Ernest Borgnine) and his henchman Gunner (Neville Brand). Things soon get worse however, after he gets framed for Culio's murder and brutalised by a corrupt police detective before eventually discovering the real identity of the waterfront's crime boss.
"The Mob" is intriguing because so many things in it are not as they seem and that old film noir motif, "characters with unreliable identities" is exploited to the full. Broderick Crawford, who is equally convincing as Damico and Flynn, is a perfect choice for his dual role and this is vital to the success of the film because he's so central to everything that happens Considering its status as a minor film noir, most people will probably find it far more entertaining than they expect it to be.
Off-duty Detective Sergeant Johnny Damico (Broderick Crawford) is walking home one rainy night when he witnesses a shooting by a man who produces a police badge and identifies himself as a Lieutenant from another precinct before rushing off to call for assistance. Damico initially tries to help the victim but when the shooter doesn't return, becomes suspicious and telephones his own precinct to report the incident. Damico gets reprimanded for being taken in by the killer and threatened with the loss of his pension. His senior officer, Lieutenant Banks (Otto Hulett) explains that the murder victim was due to testify before a grand jury investigating crime on the waterfront and the shooter is believed to be the man in charge of the waterfronts rackets.
Damico is offered the chance to redeem himself by going undercover as a dock worker so that he can investigate how the rackets work and identify the top man. The tough cop readily accepts the offer and an article that's placed in a local newspaper to announce that he's been suspended from duty is accompanied by a photograph of someone else. He's also given a new identity as Tim Flynn, a New Orleans petty criminal who's looking for work on the docks. Damico rents a room at "The Royal" hotel on the waterfront and soon befriends a longshoreman named Tom Clancy (Richard Kiley) and the hotel bartender, Smoothie (Matt Crowley).
Damico witnesses rackets such as workers being compelled to donate to a phony collection for an allegedly-injured co-worker in order to be given two days work and having gained the impression that someone called Castro is influential on the waterfront, uses his boss' name to get work and is given a job driving a forklift. Culio (Frank DeKova), the driver that he replaces, gets very resentful and soon after Damico (aka Flynn) comes in for some unwelcome attention from the seemingly crooked Joe Castro (Ernest Borgnine) and his henchman Gunner (Neville Brand). Things soon get worse however, after he gets framed for Culio's murder and brutalised by a corrupt police detective before eventually discovering the real identity of the waterfront's crime boss.
"The Mob" is intriguing because so many things in it are not as they seem and that old film noir motif, "characters with unreliable identities" is exploited to the full. Broderick Crawford, who is equally convincing as Damico and Flynn, is a perfect choice for his dual role and this is vital to the success of the film because he's so central to everything that happens Considering its status as a minor film noir, most people will probably find it far more entertaining than they expect it to be.