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***SPOILER ALERT*** Painstakingly building up a case against Mafia Kingpin Benjamin "Benji" Costain, Loren Greene, Federal Prosecutor Llyod Hallett, Edward G. Robinson, has one of his fellow mobsters Tonelli, Alfred Linden, willing to testify against him if all charges, which are in the hundreds, are dropped in exchange for his testimony. Tonelli never lives to get to the courthouse with him being gunned down by an unseen sniper on the very steps of the New York Supreme Court Building as he was being escorted there by a number of federal agents.
Desperate to get the sly and slippery Costain convicted of anything in order to have the big time hood deported to his native Italy as an undesirable alien Hallett comes up with a brainstorm of an idea. The late Tonelli's former girlfriend Sherry Conley, Ginger Rogers. Sherry is serving time in an upstate woman's prison for aiding and abetting in a payroll robbery.
It turns out that Sherry together with her then boyfriend Tonelli were on Costain's yacht where he helped slip into the states a fellow Mafia Don or Godfather. This major Italian gangster was to help Costain in his illegal dealings back in the USA. With Tonelli murdered only Sherry can implicate Costain in that illegal smuggling act. That in itself is enough to send Costain back to Italy where he'll be immediately arrested, for smuggling criminals out of the country, by the Italian police.
Ginger Rogers minus her usual song and dance act is incredibly good as the though talking and gourmet eating, loving expensive and exquisite sea food dishes, Mafia moll Sherry Conley. Being hidden in a midtown hotel Hallett has given local NYPD Detective Vince Striker, Brian Keith, and a squad on policemen the job to make sure that Sherry lives long enough to make it to the courthouse to testify against Costain.
Sherry who at first was not at all willing to testify is soon convinced to do so. That's when her friend and administrator at the prison she's staying at Mr. Willoughby, Katherine Anderson,is gunned down by, and whom Det. Striker gunned down in return, one of Costain's men who attempted to murder Sherry. ***SPOILER ALERT*** It's then that were given the surprise to end all surprises in that one of those guarding Sherry is in the pay or pocket of Benji Costain and is in fact setting her up!
Tense and nerve wracking next to final scene with Sherry's life hanging in the balance as she's unknowing being targeted from inside her, what Sherry thinks, police secured hotel suite. It takes a change of heart for the person who's setting Sherry up for the kill to finally come to his senses, as well as morals, to take out her attempted murderer but at what turned out to be the cost of his own life.
One of the best post WWII Film Noir's to come out of Hollywood yet "Tight Spot" is nowhere as popular, since its rarely shown on TV, as most of its fellow black and white police crime dramas which are nowhere as good. Edward G. Robinson is at his best as Federal Prosecutor Llyod Hallett who despite not knowing that there's a worm, or traitor, working with him senses that something isn't on the up and up. That's when Hallett is told by the person setting up Sherry about her being transfered out of her hotel-room to a local prison within the hour. A fact which only Hallett and the New York State Governor, Thomas E. Dewy?, were supposed to knew about at the time!
Brian Keith as Det. Vince Stiker is both heroic and funny as he defends Sherry from Costain's hoods and at the same time puts up with her shenanigans by giving into her every wish. Like in what food, not from your local McDonalds, Sherry want's sent up to her hotel-room for breakfast lunch and dinner.
Ginger Rogers steals the show as the confused terrified and in the end, by standing up to the sneering Benji Costain in court, steadfast Sherry Conley. In what has to be the best scene in the movie Sherry confronts her selfish sister Laura, Eve McVeagh, whom Hallett unwisely sent into her hotel-room in order to talk Sherry into testifying against Costain.
It turned that Laura was anything but accommodating to Hallett and the Feds in fact she was, afraid in what Costain would do to her and her husband, totally against Sherry testifying! This major miscalculation turned out to be a stroke of genius on Hallett's part. It was Laura's self-serving conduct that eventually, when everything else failed, got Sherry to finally agree to testify against Costain. That was more to stick it to Laura, who never as much as sent Sherry a postcard while she was in prison, then anything else's and to Hallett's complete surprise it worked like a charm.
score 8/10
sol-kay 24 April 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1863059/ |
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23-2-2021 18:10:06