Race Street (1948)

Very Cool!!!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

George Raft plays Gannin, a bookie who is, despite this, basically an honest guy. His pal, Hal (Harry Morgan) approaches him to say that some mobsters want in on his own bookmaking business. Well, these creeps turn out to mean business and when Hal refuses to cooperate, they murder him in a very vivid and brutal scene (one of the best in the film). Naturally, Gannin isn't happy but things are about to get rough for him as well, as the mobsters soon approach him as well. Now he could work with the detective (William Bendix) to expose these rats but, naturally, Gannin only likes to handle things alone. Does he possibly stand a chance?! Well, since it's George Raft, you certainly assume so!This film turned out to be a lot better than I expected. No, George Raft was just as stiff and unbelievable as he usually was in films. However, the plot offered some nice twists and kept me guessing. Plus the ending came as a HUGE surprise to me! Well worth seeing...almost deserving an 8...but not quite making it due to Raft's very ordinary sort of performance.Ironically, later Harry Morgan would play Bill Gannon on "Dragnet"...the show that helped make him a household name.

George Raft was a much better actor than people (and himself) gave him credit for. The fact that 20 years after his first film he was still making good movies is a credit to his durability and star power.This is a pretty good crime movie with many twists. Raft plays Dan Gannin, a bookie, who with the love of his girl "Robbie" (Marilyn Maxwell) wants to leave the race track racket for good. There is a protection racket starting to operate. Dan has told them he is not interested and being friends with Barney (William Bendix), a detective, helps to keep them at bay. His childhood friend Hal (a young Harry Morgan) is not so lucky - he is killed by some thugs who throw him down stairs.That is all Dan needs to flush the rats out. It leads him after a few twists and turns to Robbie's brutish husband Phil Dixon, who is very much alive and well (she had told Dan that he had been killed in the war). Frank Faylen plays Dixon. He was in so many films in the 40s, often playing vile characters but always memorable in a "Say, wasn't he the guy"!! way. Playing a harassed father in the TV series "Dobie Gillis" finally made him a household name.The deceiving Robbie was played by former singer Marilyn Maxwell, She was blonde (although a beautiful brunette in this film) pretty and curvaceous but just couldn't break through the ranks into stardom. Gale Robbins played Dan's sister Elaine but the role was just an excuse to let her sing a couple of songs - which she did very well. Charles Lane plays a sly hotel clerk. See it for the co-stars alone.Recommended.

Interesting Bill Bendix and George Raft film filled with back-stabbing galore. With Bendix as the cop and Raft as a bookie, threatened by a protection racket, we have a taut story here. Marilyn Maxwell is Raft's new love interest who is lying through her teeth. She sports a black wig here, but Bendix recognizes her for what she is.Interesting to see Raft in a role trying to go straight.This is basically the story of friendship and betrayal as told by the Bendix character. When their friend, played by Henry Morgan, is killed for not playing ball with the racketeers, Bendix and Raft step in to avenge his murder, but in different ways.The film would have been better had it been longer. The Maxwell character, the stinker that she was, could have been stretched to show how evil she really was.You know this is a different film for George Raft as he is not throwing that coin up and down in the manner that only he could do.

Noted San Francisco bookie and club owner George Raft is being muscled by the syndicate. He shrugs it off until pal Harry Morgan is thrown down a flight of stairs and killed. After that Raft is hot for revenge.Though this film was produced by RKO it has a Paramount look to it because of the presence of William Bendix as a police lieutenant and Frank Faylen as the syndicate's man in San Francisco.Raft gets a lot of good advice from Bendix in the film, most of which he ignores. Raft also has some very treacherous associates as the viewer will find out.George Raft films are always art imitating life when they are about gangsters. Except for horror film stars like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, I doubt there was ever a major star whose own life so closely got involved in the roles he played. Raft was hardly a great actor, but in gangster films he knew the mob literally from the inside out so it was never acting.Bill Bendix of course is always good, films with him in it should be seen if for no other reason than to watch him.Race Street is an average noir film which I'm sure entertained the audiences who came to see whatever A picture was playing with it.