Jack il ricattatore

Howard Duff (Early) plays an unpleasantly ambitious photographer who continually turns up at the right time to make sure he gets the unique picture that everyone wants to buy. He treats everyone with disrespect and has no morals whatsoever. He is guided by his values of greed and self-interest. Well, he gets what he deserves.

It's a strange film in that it is entertaining and I'm going to keep onto it despite the lead man being thoroughly unpleasant. Newspaper editor Bruce Bennett (David) sums things up perfectly for everybody when he says "I don't like him". Yep, no-one does. He reminds me of a typical John Garfield type or Humphrey Bogart. They are solely out for themselves and not particularly relatable or pleasant. God knows why Peggy Dow (Ellen) takes an interest in him. It is just not believable. Duff is a horrible man and he fixates on gangster moll Ann Vernon (Mrs Palmer).

The rest of the cast are good and you root for the rival gangsters Brian Donlevy (Palmer) and Lawrence Tierney (Colton) to reset the power balance against this egomaniac photographer. The moral of the story is good - don't be like Duff!

In Shakedown, Howard Duff plays his specialty, a winsome crumb. As a down-at-the-heels shutterbug desperate for a job, he sells lurid pictures -- drownings, defenestrations -- without any thought to the peril his subjects face. Once he lands the job by buttering up his editor's assistant (Peggy Dow), he realizes that compromising photos of crime figures pay better as blackmail than as journalism. He doesn't scruple to double-cross his prey if the profits can underwrite his taste for the high life, including the widow of a mobster he set up for a hit. When he just happens to be on hand to snap that murder, he causes a sensation but raises suspicions. Of course, his duplicity and greed prove his undoing.... With such familiar tough guys as Brian Donleavy and Lawrence Tierney, the movie clicks right along apace with Duff's camera. A nice irony shades the ending, not unlike the denouement of Taxi Driver: the heel gets turned into something like a hero.

The film opens with Jack Early (Howard Duff) in a railroad yard running from what appears to be a group of mobsters, with his camera in hand. He hides the camera before the mobsters can catch up to him. When they get to him they beat him up and throw him on the train tracks, assuming he will be run over. But he gets off of the tracks in time, reclaims his camera, and goes to a local newspaper office to sell his photo of mob activity. He manages to parlay his photo into a job there taking pictures of lost dogs. At this point you like this guy. He seems grateful for the job and looks at it as an opportunity to prove himself and maybe get an even better job there. He begins to romance the assistant editor (Peggy Dow as Ellen), although she has a dentist fiance in Portland whom she doesn't seem to be all that passionate about.

But Early's likeability factor changes, and it becomes clear this guy is and probably always has been a creep. He ingratiates himself with a semi legit mobster (Brian Donlevy), only to end up playing him against still another more violent mobster. He is in love at first sight with the semi legit mobster's wife, although she is completely loyal to her husband. And yet he is still - simultaneously - courting Ellen the assistant editor. Why is he doing all of this? Is he just a bottomless pit of ambition or does he like outsmarting everybody else or is he addicted to danger? I'll tell you now that the answer is never clear.

That's what makes this a very good noir - Jack Early is a complete conundrum. He is not your normal middle class noir protagonist who is a victim of circumstances. He could have easily succeeded in life on the straight path had he so chosen to do so.

This is a treat for Lawrence Tierney fans as he portrays the more homicidal of the two mobsters Jack Early is conning and gets a good amount of screen time. Tierney's intense delivery and perpetual scowl is effective as always, and this is probably the last of his good screen roles after RKO let him go because of his constant brawling ways and before he descended into poverty row films.

Howard Duff is an ambitious photographer looking for a job at a newspaper. Once he does, his ambitions start to skyrocket. His brash attitude gets him a snapshot of mobster Brian Donlevy, who takes a shine to him. Donlevy informs him of a robbery his competitor Lawrence Tierney is about to do, and Duff soon has himself another sensational photograph. After he photographs Tierney planting a bomb in Donlevy's car, he tries to blackmail Tierney while also hitting on Donlevy's widow Anne Vernon. Duff thinks he's in control but he's already in way over his head.

Ouch, the print I saw was in bad, bad shape, it seems like a 4th generation VHS recording, washed out with a slightly warped image. But don't let this stop you, this is a really good noir! It is always nice to see a noir where the 'protagonist' is a bigger bastard than the mobsters, including Lawrence Tierney!

Duff does a good job of portraying a man who seems like he's just anxious to find a job but who you soon realize is selfish, ruthless and only out for himself. He even tries to play 2 women at the same time, a mobster's widow and an editor at the newspaper, Peggy Dow (who already has a fiancée!). Donlevy and Tierney do what they excel at, playing rough, no-nonsense men. The rest of the supporting cast, which also includes Bruce Bennett as the chief editor, are equally solid. The cast has a ton of noir credentials between them, including 'The Naked City', 'The Glass Key', 'Born To Kill', 'Mildred Pierce' and many more... For French actress Vernon this was her only Hollywood movie however, but she's great here, bringing a lot of charm to her role.

This was director Joseph Pevney's first movie ('Female On The Beach', 'The Midnight Story'), but he does really well here. DoP Irving Glassberg ('Outside The Wall', 'The Web') also does good work here, making good use of real locations like a parking garage.

Don't let the bad picture quality deter you, this is the real deal, complete with a noir ending. Good stuff! Recommended! 8/10

This film is about the best example of noir you will find about blackmail and shakedowns. It stars Howard Duff as an unscrupulous photographer, who will do anything and anyone to get the pictures that will advance his career. His heartless, ruthless portrayal is chilling at times. It kind of reminded me of myself when I was younger, but I mellowed with age.

Lawrence Tierney is always terrific in these films; and this one is no exception. He plays a violent hood being shaken down by Duff.

In this film, Duff uses women like most of us use a plastic bottle of water; use once and throw away. I am sure Ida Lupino (his real life love) was amused by this role. The only problem is that Duff has a genuine likable personality in real life, so he is being cast against type here. He would go on to many more good guy roles that audiences really wanted to see from him. A solid entry.