Too much of everything

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

As Good As It Gets

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

***SPOILERS*** Yes, I agree with the other reviewers. It is a shiny bauble in the cheap costume jewelry of the cheap floozie as girlfriend, and cheap suited detectives that turn her out. Yeah, she was cheaply pretty in a crummy sort of way.... yeah, you get the picture. I just accidentally saw this dark diamond on TCM's Noir Alley (if you're gonna write about or do a film noir, ya gotta have an alley); It is great. Both the movie, and the TCM series.The point I'd make is that I knew right away that they were gonna get caught when Purvis didn't finish Ryan. It's a giveaway. Problem they had back then was that the Hollywood censorship authorities had a rule about crime not paying. Still, I wonder if the sweet, sexy tramp was charged and convicted, or if she turned state's witness. I wonder if any cops picked up some extra cash when nobody was looking. After all, it WAS being blown around on the airfield runway, wasn't it? Extra retirement fund, you might say... just wondering, you know. Interesting about Charles McGraw MUCH more interesting than Dr. Phil, wouldn't you say)? IMDB has him on file. I just ragged on "Better Call Saul" in another review, and this is a great reason why. It seems that Hollywood forgot how to make tight, close quarters dramas. Now, they cram commercials down your throat, and treat you like you don't matter, and You take it. Protest it and demand a return to great entertainment. THIS production is, and will remain a 10.

After an armored car is robbed by a small gang of crooks, a determined cop goes after them. McGraw is good in what was for him a typical role of a no-nonsense tough guy. Talman, who made a career out of playing creepy villains, is also effective as the ruthless mastermind behind the robbery. The curvaceous Jergens provides the love interest. It is a solid if unspectacular crime drama, well executed by B-movie director Fleischer, who specialized in these kinds of gritty films, the best known being "The Narrow Margin," made a couple of years after this and also starring McGraw. It moves at a fast pace, clocking in at under 70 minutes.

A good early killer crime flick from director Richard Fleischer, who really hit his straps 20 years later with the classic sci-fi "Soylent Green" (1973).This film noir is well plotted, has a great storyline and is interesting and absorbing throughout. At 67 minutes it achieves its required result with very little padding.Brisk performances from the gravel voiced Charles McGraw who had made it big in TV in the mid-50's with "The Adventures of Falcon".Tough blonde Adele Jergen, who had a tragic life off screen, is great as the lover of gangland leader William Talman who made a career as the District Attorney who always lost to Perry Mason.If it ever comes on one of the movie channels do yourself a favour and see it.7/10

A good low-budget noir. (Though the budget looks pretty darn low, it has a lot of big names.) The plot itself is somewhat routine. Cps vs bad guy. Really bad leader vs his underlings. The matter-of-fact title tells a whole lot of the story.However, Adele Jergens is the draw here. She plays a burlesque dancer. (And we see her routine a couple times. Even today, it looks tawdry.) Though this came out before my time, newsstands kept girlie magazines from years and years -- decades, even -- in stock. I remember as a kid wondering about the weird shoes these women were posing in. Well, Adele Jergens looks like the quintessential bleached-blonde naughty girl of the 1950s-60s. And she was a good actress, too.More of her would have leavened the plot./ As it is, it's too many guys who look and sound alike -- all of them fine actors but enough gets to be enough.