Ralph Cotter is a career criminal who escapes from prison and then murders his partner-in-crime. Along the way, he attempts to woo his ex-partner's sister by threatening to expose her role in his escape. Cotter quickly gets back into the crime business—only to be shaken down by corrupt local cops. Then when he turns the tables on them, his real troubles have only started.
The film was based on a novel by Horace McCoy which was published in 1948. It became a best seller. Humphrey Bogart and Robert Lord were interested in securing the film rights before the novel's publication. In November 1949 the film rights were sold to William Schiffrin, an independent producer. The February 1950 the Cagney brothers bought the film rights. In March 1950 Barbara Payton was cast. Helena Carter joined the cast in April. It was the first of four movies the Cagney brothers made for Warner Bros. James Cagney said he and his brother did a deal where they gave the banks the first five hundred thousand dollars the film made, in order to pay back debts from The Time of Your Lives. Filming began on 14 April 1950 at General Service Studios. The Cagneys liked Douglas' work and signed him to a multi picture contract.
Restoration / re-release
A restored version of the film was released in 2011. The film was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in cooperation with Paramount Pictures, funded by the Packard Humanities Institute. The new print was made "from the original 35mm nitrate picture and track negatives and a 35mm safety print." The restoration premiered at the UCLA Festival of Preservation on March 14, 2011.
Reception
Critical response
The film, often compared unfavorably to White Heat, received mixed reviews. Fred Camper, film critic for The Chicago Reader, called the film misdirected, writing, "Gordon Douglas's direction is almost incoherent compared to Raoul Walsh's in White Heat, which features Cagney in a similar role; the compositions and camera movements, while momentarily effective, have little relationship to each other, and the film reads a bit like an orchestra playing without a conductor." Film critic Dennis Schwartz generally liked the film and wrote, "This is an energetic straightforward crime drama based on the book by Horace McCoy and the screen play, which hardly makes sense and is the root of the film's problems, is by Harry Brown. Gordon M. Douglas helms it by keeping it fast-paced, brutal and cynical, and lets star James Cagney pick up where he left off in the year earlier White Heat as an unsympathetic mad dog killer. This was an even tougher film, but the crowds did not respond to it as favorably as they did to White Heat." Filmink said "Both Payton and Carter are a little too attractive looking for pudgy old Cagney, who was pushing fifty at the time – did he ever play such a stud muffin? It’s the biggest flaw in an otherwise solid gangster story." While not regarded as favorably as White Heat, its lower budget and maze-like plot-lines involving crooked cops, two opposing women, economically-shot scenes going to and from small interior locations, and an array of twists and turns make it something the more action-packed and mainstream White Heat wasn't: a film noir. The outside marquee in the cult-famous movie theater scene in the horror movieMessiah of Evil bears this movie's title. This was the second James Cagney picture featuring William Frawley, the first being Something to Sing About.
