Johnny Allegro

Ted Tetzlaff’s Johnny Allegro is a strange and lively little film in which George Raft plays the title character, a fugitive from Sing Sing who’s been living a new life as a Los Angeles floral shop manager until a U.S. Treasury agent (Will Geer) tracks him down and offers him a dangerous, undercover job in exchange for his continued freedom. Johnny’s assigned to become “friends” with the mysterious Glenda Campbell (Nina Foch) who, we later learn, is married to wealthy counterfeiter Morgan Vallin (the always compelling George Macready) who plans to take down America by flooding the economy with fake currency. Securing an invitation to fly home with Glenda and stay in her and her husband’s island estate, Johnny finds himself a target of Vallin’s bow and arrow, but he needs to survive at least until the T-men can trace his location. Tetzlaff creates a handful of beautiful images (note the silhouetted two-shot, the first night’s guest room prowl), a few unexpected twists (a malaria flare-up?), and some fun sequences, such as the journey by plane, boat, and hike to the island estate and Vallin’s final hunt (“It’s exhilarating, hunting man”).