The Undercover Man

Accounting may not be a particularly exciting noir subject, but Joseph H. Lewis’s oddly titled The Undercover Man delivers the tension and tropes any noir lover can appreciate: snappy dialogue, police line-ups, oceans of fedoras, corruption and duplicity. Of course, financial malfeasance was often merely a pretext for nailing brutally violent gangsters, as was the case with Al Capone whose conviction for tax evasion was this film’s inspiration. Glenn Ford plays U.S. Treasury agent Frank Warren, who’s assigned to take down crime syndicate boss Big Fellow (Ralph Volkie) after a tip that he avoided paying $3,000,000 in taxes; every potential witness, however, turns up dead. Warren and his partners assiduously hunt for clues and connections, which lead to mob accountant Salvatore Rocco (Anthony Caruso), who’s abandoned his wife, daughter, and mother for a cheap showgirl. Despite a patina of propaganda, the film netted Ford one of his stronger performances, largely due to his exceptional on-screen chemistry with Nina Foch, who plays Warren’s neglected wife Judy. Another outstanding performance: John Hamilton as a disillusioned desk sergeant filing paperwork in a ghost-like daze.