Forgotten Noir 2: (Loan Shark / Arson Inc)

I liked the double feature loan shark with george raft and arson inc.Arson inc was about a fire investigation agent who goes undercover to capture a ruthless arson ring. the film was low budget and no name stars but it was pretty good. arson inc had some corny parts but it worked for me and was good enough overall.Now the better movie was george raft in loan shark. george raft is good in these tough guys movies. raft plays a man just out of prison assigned to nail a ruthless loan shark ring. it goes on the premise you need bad guys to capture other bad guys.the movie even has the man who played the professor in gilligans island in a straight serious role. he does a good job working with the loan sharks. And like was said before the actor paul stewart made a slimy good villian in this movie and the actor john hoyt was a good villian too.playing the mobster who tries to look like a respectable businessman. he even has a sexy ditsy,dancing girlfriend in his rich penthouse apartment, this blonde bombshell is really far toooo young for him but it works in a picture like this. I would of loved to see one more big gorilla like henchmen in this movie like a mike mazurki type from the movie "murder my sweet" with dick powell but it was fine as it was.raft has a good looking gal too but as was mentioned he was a bit too old for her and a bit too old for this role.I think a younger more muscular Robert mitchum may of been a better choice for this movie. even though I am glad raft got the part.So If you like tough guy, film noir movies like I certainly do.... loan shark and arson inc wont dissapoint you . I was happy with both flicks, especially loan shark with george raft. Both films are recommended!

Again, another excellent film noir hit. All in glorious black and white. B movies from the past are a blast to watch. Not only do the bring back memories of being from the first generation of television but they are a great trip back to the past.

image quality on these titles is good. Loan Shark is a surprisingly good picture with a great cast. It's one of Lippert's better pictures. If it weren't for Kit Parker and VCI it wouild have fallen into oblivion.

ARSON, INC:Director William Berke specialized in cheapo jungle adventures but he worked in a variety of genres, churning out in 1949 alone 3 crime/noir films, a Jungle Jim adventure with Johnny Weissmuller, another jungle pic, and a western. Whew! It's amazing that this film is as good as it is given the necessarily brief shooting schedule, budget and no-name cast. Robert Lowery plays Joe Martin, a firefighter who in the opening scenes is promoted to a position as an undercover investigator in the arson department after he finds some suspicious evidence while fighting a fire at a fur warehouse. Turns out there's an insurance scam in the making, and Martin's investigation leads him both to a job with the insurance company exec - really a mobster who takes over businesses when the heat gets too tough for his clients - and a romance with a babysitter who he meets while waiting for the first people in the chain that will lead him to the mobster.This is tautly and efficiently put together at 63 minutes and the acting is serviceable, though only character actor Edward Brophy as oily and garrulous henchman Pete, and Maude Eburne as the love interest's Grandma stand out. Nicely lit and shot by Carl Berger with some location work blending pretty well with the studio sets. Nothing to write home about but effective enough.LOAN SHARKRather better than the previous film is "Loan Shark" which benefits from an obviously larger budget and something of a name cast, though it's still clearly a b-picture at heart. George Raft, a little long in the tooth, and perhaps a bit miscast at 57 and too stiff and humorless, is Joe Gargan, out of prison after a few years for assault and battery, trying to make a new life by getting a straight job at the tire factor his brother-in-law works for. But we know right away it ain't gonna be easy as the film opens with one of the most awesome quick, violent scenes in noir as an unknown man leaves his apartment and is quickly followed to an alley and brutally beaten within an inch of his life.The beatings it turns out come courtesy of a loan shark ring that has much of the plant, and much of the unnamed city in thrall. The young workers get in debt, wanting to buy their wives nice things or betting on the horses, and they're led to the ring by an unknown stooge. Gargan comes to just get a simple job, but is recruited instead by the tire company president to investigate the goings-on and find out who is the stooge, and as much as he can about the operation. At first Gargan resists the notion, wanting nothing to do with this, but after his brother-in-law is killed he goes all in, even going so far as to infiltrate the loan shark operation by becoming the protégé of the group's leader at the tire factory, Donelli (the always wonderfully slimy Paul Stewart) and eventually working his way into starting a new operation with a dummy laundry service. By this point he's on the same page as Donelli, with only the big boss Phillips (John Hoyt, enormously charming and catlike dangerous) above him. Or is there someone else...we and he don't get to find that out until the nicely staged finale which culminates in a shootout in a theater.Along the way Gargan starts a romance with a young lady who lives on the same floor as his sister, but loses her when he goes deeply into the mobsters' racket, even going so far as to beat up her brother for non-payment of loans. The romantic scenes are obvious reminders of one of the few problems this tough and exciting little picture has - Raft, who is definitely old enough to make his job prospects at the plant rather unbelievable and his romance with Ann (Dorothy Hart, about half his age) a little creepy. But beyond that, he's wooden and monotonal in a way that reminded me more of Charles Bronson 30 years later than Raft's own much better work 20 years earlier. Oh well, he does get the job done and he's still tough and mean-looking enough that he doesn't really detract from a nice little slightly off-the-beaten track entry in the cycle. A noir set in a tire factory? Who'da thought.Not a lot in the way of extras on this VCI disc, but the transfers are good enough and for those of us old enough to remember the bad old VHS days when we were excited to get even the really well-known stuff, there's no reason to complain. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the cheap and seedy byways of the noir style.

Love George Raft, love his films, great quality, came promptly, many thanks