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Rooney does his customary believable job as a Hoffa-like labor boss being skewered by a panel of senators. He hides behind the Fifth Amendment but his tongue slips once when asked about one of his hoodlums and the rest of the picture is one shock after another. Cochran plays a straight heroic type whose son is kidnaped by Rooney's goons when Cochran mounts an offense against Rooney's tyrannical rule of the union. Suspense is high and so is the violence: Torme, Cochran's best friend, is burned and a hood is tossed into a cement mixer. This film was made by the same group that did the dreadful THE BEAT GENERATION the same year. Zugsmith, Haas, Danton, Cochran, Coogan, Ray Anthony, Daniels, Van Doren, and Charles Chaplin, Jr., were all involved in both movies. One was tripe but this one had some merit. The difference lay in the script. Smith and Rivkin respected the Gallico story and provided cast and crew with a no-nonsense, tense story that never flags. (Remake of JOE SMITH, AMERICAN.)

The evening before the start of a Senate Committee probe into racketeering, William Tragg, the treasurer for the Carlton and Son Precision Tool plant, is murdered by Oscar "The Executioner" Wetzel. Wetzel brings Tragg's business papers to union boss "Little Joe" Braun, who is waiting in his car outside of the union hall. Plant worker Bill Gibson and his coworker and friend Fred McAfee witness Wetzel deliver the papers to Braun. At the Senate hearings the following day, Braun repeatedly pleads the Fifth Amendment, despite a formal letter read into the record from the National Labor Federation warning him to comply with the court. When the subpoenaed Tragg and his files cannot be located, Braun is summoned to the court for further questioning.

Gary Tooze

September 5th, 2014