dfloro Review of The Underworld Story

The Underworld Story (1950)

Better than usual noir by better than average director

[7/10 · 22 May 2022]

Cyril "Cy" Endfield directed several examples of film noir starting in the late 1940s, such as this one starring Dan Duryea and Herbert Marshall, and Cy was proving to be a better than average director, just as he had proven to be a pretty good screenwriter of short films in the early '40s. Unfortunately, it was the latter that would eventually get him in trouble with the infamous HUAC (specifically, a 17-minute short with the title "Inflation," starring Edward Arnold as the devil himself, which had been labeled-I kid you not--"excessively critical of Capitalism"). Rather than rat on others to the Committee, Cy moved to Britain to make more movies. But not before finishing "The Underworld Story" for US release in 1950. The fairly convoluted plot has a bit of everything: both good & bad journalists, and good & bad law enforcement and, of course, organized crime. And a woman who it turns out was NOT murdered for her jewelry by her maid. So I'm going to give this one a 7/10 rating.