711 Ocean Drive

A really fast-paced, gritty noir from B-movie specialist Joseph Newman. The film is largely about O'Brien's gradual descent from everyman working schlubb to ruthless crime boss and he really digs into the role. The climax set at Hoover Dam is a highlight.

Back to where I left off in 2021, continuing into the year 1950 with a film that falls between typical classic Hollywood style and the harder tones of post-war crime flicks. While it doesn't 100% merge, finding the visual tones to get lost in, the plot did intrigue and drag me in as Edmond O'Brien gets too deep in organized crime for his own good. How it gradually unfolds, to the inevitable downfall, plays-out satisfying to me.

A really dull ham-fisted organized crime picture filled with superficial one dimensional characters. None of the actors including Edmond O'Brien were very good in this and none of them were really given a chance to shine.

A government agent noir, though this one focuses largely on the criminal, with a few reminders that, yeah, he'll get caught. It's a pretty solid rise and fall story with a few cool moments, but nothing spectacular. The problem is that a lot of it feels a dry and tedious, with details about gambling and bookies and wire services that go on and on beyond the point where they matter to the story or characterizations. Still, the story's good and if it weren't so bloated I would have enjoyed it more.

Nice breezy low-budget crime thriller about illegal off-track betting.

By-the-numbers but enjoyable gangster noir, it gets the beats right and the tone right although it doesn't stand out much from the pack. I thought the particulars of the bookie business were rather confusing, but ultimately such details don't matter much. The highlight is the climax, a chase through the bowels of Boulder Dam. Like so many noirs, the worst of it is in the final moments, in this case a ridiculously preachy voice-over about the insidious evils of gambling.

liked the concept, but the characters were too one dimensional and sometimes drug on. the acting was sub par, but bareable.