edwagreen After breaking a news-story about someone talking to the government about the mob leads to an assassination of the would-be stool pigeon, the reporter, Dan Duryea, who leaked the story is fired and goes to a small-town to a newspaper run by Gale Storm whose father had just died. He immediately takes over and soon becomes involved in a murder mystery when the daughter-in-law of wealthy paper magnate, Herbert Marshall, is murdered.We immediately find out who has carried out the dastardly deed and the link is there when the murderer turns to help from the same mobster who had killed the man Duryea had exposed.Marshall shows his usually icy veneer and one wonders what was really going on between himself and the daughter-in-law.For myself, the ending came too quickly.

MartinHafer When the story begins, newspaper man Mike Reese (Dan Duryea) is fired from a big city paper for unethical conduct...conduct that resulted in someone's murder by the local mob boss, Durham (Howard Da Silva). Not surprisingly, he's fired and no one will hire him.He soon finds himself in a small town and gets himself a job with a tiny, unimportant paper. However, when a rich and very important lady is murdered, he sees it as a chance to make it back to the big time papers. He champions the cause of the woman accused of the murder-- even though he probably doesn't believe in her innocence at all. However, through the course of the film something interesting happens...folks, including Durham, start pressuring Mike to drop the story. So, there must be something to all this and the fix is on...and suddenly the opportunistic and soulless guy is read to risk his life to do what is right! But he might just get himself killed in the process...and folks seem more than ready to oblige.While this film isn't strictly a traditional film noir picture in some ways, as the plot isn't at all typical of noir, but it sure is noir in spirit. There are many dark and evil characters you'd see in a noir picture and there also is the morally challenged hero. But what's most noir about this film is the camera-work...with camera angles and shadows that you'd find in any decent noir picture. This film proves that Dan Duryea was a heck of an actor. While he's normally known for playing greasy, pusillanimous jerks, here he has so much more to him and he is a great combination of grit, cynicism and, believe it or not, decency! Overall, a fantastic film that's undergone a recent revival in interest and is now seen by many as a classic. Classic? Yes, I can see that.

gordonl56 THE UNDERWORLD STORY – 1950A rather unseen film, that deserves to be better known, particularly among noir fans.Dan Duryea plays a reporter on a big city newspaper who gets himself blacklisted. He wrote a story that ended up getting a Police witness deep-sixed. He is more or less persona non grata with any big town newspapers. He borrows some cash and buys a half interest in a small New England paper ran by Gale Storm.For Duryea, it is perfect timing. A murder has happened in town, and it involves the daughter in law of big time newspaper owner, Herbert Marshall. Duryea dives in looking to make a big financial score by selling the deal before the wire services do.Duryea, a less than "upright" newsman makes like a salesman as he wheels and deals the story. His new partner, Gale Storm is not in the least impressed with Duryea.The audience knows right off the bat who the killer is. It is the dead woman's husband, Gar Moore. The Police though, are looking for the dead woman's Negro maid, Mary Anderson. And she looks guilty as hell as she had been in the city selling the dead woman's jewels.Duryea sees an even bigger chance at a money making story. He starts up a defence fund for the maid. He hires a lawyer who agrees to split the fund with Duryea. Needless to say some roadblocks pop up for Duryea and his schemes.This is a very entertaining film, with cast and crew all excellent. The direction of Cy Endfield is spot on. Endfield's work includes, THE SOUND OF FURY, HELL DRIVERS, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, ZULU and SANDS OF THE KALAHARI. The look of the film is equally good with Stanley Cortez handling the cinematography duties.Well worth a watch.

jarrodmcdonald-1 Howard Da Silva was underused. He appears briefly in the first few minutes, then he doesn't reappear until the 70 minute mark (it's only a 91 minute movie). I also thought the scriptwriters delayed Marshall's appearance in the film unnecessarily-- and I get that they were establishing the relationship between Duryea and Storm-- but the murder plot really does not get underway until after this long prologue plays out. And the relationship between Duryea and Storm gets seriously backgrounded in the last third of the movie, so what was the point of introducing a romantic subplot only to drop it?At times I thought the casting of Gar Moore as Marshall's son was off. Clearly, he was the film's weakest actor. I noticed he had done a series of films in Italy in the 40s before signing with Universal (where he undoubtedly met Duryea), and maybe his acting style was a bit unsteady because he was not used to working with these kinds of actors. The film was obviously shot on a lower budget than most studio productions and its cheapness is evident in the newspaper office scenes which seem to have been shot in some warehouse. But the use of black and white film and lighting that cast shadows on the proceedings to add a level of depth worked to cleverly conceal the cheap looking sets. It helped tremendously when they filmed outdoors in the streets and at the cemetery, which seemed quite authentic. What I loved most about THE UNDERWORLD STORY was its deliberately slow pacing. If this was a studio B film, the narrative would have been rushed and crammed into 60 minutes. But because they have stretched this out to an hour and a half, we get a lot of extra pauses and reflections and insights to the characters and their motivations. The dialogue was poor in some spots, but pros like Herbert Marshall and Howard Da Silva kept it interesting-- if not for the words they were uttering but for the reactions they were generating and the careful tense stares that seem to go so well with this kind of story.