Noirish crime drama, well acted, in unusual setting of Brooklyn docks, where vile John Garfield is putting the squeeze on poor fishermen John Qualen and Thomas Mitchell, whilst having the audacity to turn the head of the latter's daughter, Ida Lupino, who wants out. Actually even when she learns her father is paying protection from the violent thug, she still wants him (well, the money, the life). It's quite a gritty screenplay by Robert Rossen, Jerry Wald and Richard Macauley, from Irwin Shaw play, evidenced by Mitchell's malingering and bitter wife, and the following quotes:
"I turned from factory worker to bootlegger in eight minutes."
And -
"How can you be so hard? What have you got inside of you?"
"I got education inside of me, baby. An education I learned on the break rods and bread lines and the pool rooms and the beer parlours and the big cities. I got rocks inside me, baby."
Not without humour, also, e.g. the woman who wants to marry Qualen, the bankrupt Russian in the steam room (George Tobias). Great, tense ending. With Eddie Albert, Aline MacMahon, Jerome Cowan (DA), Robert Homans (copper), Jimmy Conlin. Moodily photographed by James Wong Howe on Warner Bros sets, music (uncredited) Heinz Roemheld.
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