Well, I completely read this wrong. (Paul Monash adapted George V Higgins' novel.) I thought firstly that the Peter Boyle character had shopped the gang to the feds. And then I thought that Mitchum knew full well what was going on at the end, had a plan to flip everything and get away. Instead it's a bleak ending, and as underplayed as the rest of the film.
It's very low key but very watchable due to good performances from familiar faces, and the gnawing feeling that something's going to go wrong somewhere along the line. (I obviously thought I knew better.) With Richard Jordan (The Secret of My Success, Logan's Run), Steven Keats (Black Sunday, Death Wish), Alex Rocco (The Godfather, himself a former member of Boston's Winter Hill Gang), Joe Santos, Mitchell Ryan (Lethal Weapon).
Photographed on location in Boston, by Victor Kemper, where Mitchum would hang around with criminal types. The stakeout at the train station is a memorable scene.
Released through Paramount, but its 'downbeat theme precluded wide popularity'.
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