The Mob (1951)

(On Cable TV, June 2021) Genre can be as important as topic matter in distinguishing a film, and for a good example of this, you can take a look at quasi-contemporary The Mob and On the Waterfront, two early-1950s films both dealing with crime and corruption among longshoremen. But whereas On the Waterfront attained immortality through a finely drawn dramatic portrait of people fighting the system, The Mob goes for a cops-versus-mob film noir. I’m not necessarily complaining: The Mob is far more entertaining on a basic level, and it doesn’t need Marlon Brando when there’s Broderick Crawford to play the tough grizzled cop going undercover to expose a crime ring. While technically a film noir due to its tone and production era, it’s a film that harkens more to the 1930s gangster pictures — there’s not much darkness to the protagonist, order is restored in the end and the status quo of American society is not seriously questioned. Chalk it up to another subgenre distinction. Still, it’s a solid crime picture, and it clocks in at an economical 86 minutes. Unlike On the Waterfront, there aren’t that many wasted moments and dull sequences in The Mob — it’s mean and lean, and it affirms Broderick’s stature at the time. Not a bad pick for a quiet evening, and you get a lot of mileage out of a double bill with its illustrious waterfront companion.