The Underworld Story is quite an unusual noir movie because it actually brings racism to the forefront for about half its runtime. This was the early 50s, and most people knew by now that black Americans were getting unfairly treated for an extremely long time, but not many producers would dare make a film detailing this. The movie isn't strictly focused on this though. At its core, it is still a noir starring one of the genre's most iconic actors: Dan Duryea. I first saw him in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street, now one of my favorite films ever, so I was excited to observe his performance here. The movie starts off strong and shows two people getting gunned down by mobsters armed with shotguns firing from a car. Mike (Duryea) is a leftist journalist who gets fired from his job because his writing essentially caused the violent escalation we saw earlier by publishing an article about gangsters. A mob boss named Carl (Howard Da Silva) is so powerful that he effectively gets Mike blacklisted because of his writing, and he has an extremely hard time finding a new job. Eventually, he is hired by a newspaper in a small community known as Lakeville. A girl named Catherine (Gale Storm) is the owner of the paper and she clashes with Mike over how best to run the whole ordeal. What she doesn't know is that Mike got his job at this new place using money he extorted from Carl. Soon, a wealthy woman is killed, and Mike tries to seize this opportunity as his one and only chance to start writing for important papers again. The dead woman was also the daughter in law of Mike's old boss. Things start to heat up for Mike when he learns that a young black woman named Molly (Mary Anderson) is the person who people think is guilty. For Mike, Molly is basically just someone to be written about and paraded in front of the cameras. According to him, he's doing it for a good cause because he wants to prove to everyone that Molly isn't guilty. Meanwhile, Carl and his thugs try to bully Mike into forgetting about the media frenzy. They want everyone's eyes off of Molly for some reason. As it turns out, Mike wants people to believe Molly isn't guilty, but only partially. In reality, Mike is playing both sides and flips back and forth between saying she's guilty/not guilty in order to write profitable articles. Little does everyone know, the real killer of the woman is the son of the newspaper mogul EJ Stanton (Herbert Marshall). Although it looks like Mike is willing to let Molly get lynched just so he can generate more money, his redemption begins when he goes to the penitentiary she is being held in. A lawyer named Becker (Roland Winters) tries to convince Molly that the only way she's going to avoid being hanged (now that she has lost Lakeville's support) is to admit she is guilty. That way, the charge will be reduced to manslaughter instead of murder. While Mike thinks this is a good plan, Molly doesn't and she compares him to a slave trader. After much frustration and heckling from Carl's gang, Mike manages to clear Molly's name using money he raised from a committee whose members are dedicated to proving Molly is innocent. Clark (Stanton's son) is shot and killed by one of his associates, and even after Mike is beaten within an inch of his life, he survives and Catherine is now his girlfriend. I have to say, this is one of the most confusing movies I've seen in a while. I can't explain why, but it seems like there's too much going on. I didn't really like how Duryea's character is portrayed. At first, he basically just utilizes Molly as a subject for his articles, but when Stanton and his powerful newspaper empire threaten to totally crush Lakeville's paper, all the people in the town are now miraculously against Mike's agenda and Molly. Lakeville started out loving her, but it even says that now 89% think she's guilty. It's only after this happens that Mike finally decides to play nice and start crusading for Molly's reputation for real. It's patronizing, it's ridiculous, and when I saw it in the movie, it was laughable. I guess everyone in the town was secretly prejudiced all along. Do I blame Dan for this movie's shortcomings in terms of its story? Of course I don't. He's still a noir icon, and he's played people with questionable motives before, but it's annoying to see him star in a movie that is basically nothing other than Journalists Are Evil: The Film. Overall, because of its mostly confusing storyline, overemphasis on journalism (which is boring for many, many people), stiff acting (except for Dan), and the baffling decision to choose a white actress to play a black character, I would say to give The Underworld Story a miss. I typically like Dan's movies, but this one left much to be desired in my case and I think it'll only please zealous fans of his.
Review of The Underworld Story
