Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

evanston_dad Though released in 1960 and therefore in my opinion too late to be considered a true film noir, "Murder, Inc." plays like one, and I can easily see this having come out about a decade earlier, when noirs were in their heyday, with little alteration.It's based on the true events that led to a crackdown on an organized crime syndicate in Chicago in the 1930s, and specifically a group of hired killers who were employed to wipe out anyone who crime bosses viewed as an adversary. It makes absolutely no effort to recreate period detail, and aside from a few antique cars, looks like it's set in the present day of 1960. Stuart Whitman plays the protagonist, a man whose desperation leads him into a life of crime but whose moral code leaves him feeling conflicted and ultimately leads to him becoming an informer. The film is probably best known today as the one that brought Peter Falk his first of two Oscar nominations for playing one of the hired killers and both friend and foe to Whitman. The film looks cheap and gritty, which serves the material well, but it also feels ragged and undercooked, and not in that enjoyable way that traditional noirs could often be. Especially toward the end, the film feels like its makers lost interest in the movie they were making and decided to abruptly wrap things up just so they could be done with it.Grade: B

JohnHowardReid Film editor Ralph Rosenblum is obviously a disciple of Sergei Eisenstein. Certainly, Eisenstein's method of montage is very appropriately applied here – as is Gayne Rescher's bleak black-and-white CinemaScope photography. This documentary was actually based on the autobiography by Burton Turkus (played by Henry Morgan in the movie). Alas, the direction by Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg is often over-reverential towards its original material. In fact, the movie is so weighed down with talk that the pace often slows to the speed of a snail. Fortunately, some persuasive acting is contributed by David J. Stewart and his glum henchman, Joseph Bernard. I also enjoyed Morey Amsterdam's bit. The film also supposedly "introduces" Sarah Vaughan who actually made her movie debut back in 1951 in "Disc Jockey". She sings a couple of songs. One actor we could do without, however, is Stuart Whitman whose performance is not only unconvincing but painfully tedious. May Britt's acting also disappoints, but at least she is easy on the eyes! As for Frank DeVol's music score this also is well below his usual high standard.

ccthemovieman-1 Those who comment that Peter Falk elevated this movie to a very interesting one are right on the money. Falk, in his first role on screen, definitely plays the most interesting character. Of course, anyone who is a deranged killer is likely to be the focus of viewers' attention. However, the actor still has to be convincing and Falk does a fine job here as "Abe Reles."He's convincing!What made this film fun for me was not only Falk, but seeing a few other faces I haven't seen in years, such as May Britt, Henry Morgan and Stuart Whitman. Having watched a few "Night Stalker" TV episodes, I was still very familiar with Simon Oakland. The above actors were all very good in here, as was the rest of the cast, except maybe David Stewart as head crime boss "Lepke." He was too bland for his role.We even get a song from a young Sarah Vaughan and a comedy routine from Morey Amsterdam!Falk is the undisputed star of the film but second-place, to me, went to Morgan, who was quietly fascinating as the cop "Turkus."Another nice thing was the DVD which gives us the original widescreen transfer of the film. There aren't many black-and-white CinemaScope pictures available for us movie fans to see, so it was pleasure to view this.

William J. Fickling Thank God for Turner Classic Movies for digging up obscure stuff like this, not available on video or DVD, that would otherwise disappear. Not that it's that great a movie; it isn't. There are much better gangster films. However, it is notable for two things: it is Peter Falk's debut film, and it names names, something most gangster films before and after didn't do, unless the film was set well into the past. Of course, all the gangsters whose names are given are conveniently dead: Abe Reles, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and Albert Anastasia. A notable omission is Meyer Lansky, who was alive at the time and thus could have sued for libel. But a pretty good overview of organized crime in the 30s and 40s. Albert Anastasia, by the way, was the real life model for Johnny Friendly, played by Lee J. Cobb, in "On the Waterfront." He was gunned down in a barber's chair while he was getting a haircut in a New York hotel barbershop in 1957. 8/10