The fame of this lingers a little. First film from Bogart's company, Santana. Star debut of John Derek. Introduced the line "live fast die young and leave a good looking corpse".
Good on Bogart for trying to expand his range. He plays a lawyer, from the slums, defending Derek, a kid from the slums. We flash back to various events. See the circumstances that led to the "creation" of this kid.
It was filmed at Columbia (who did a deal with Santana). Columbia reliable George Macready is the prosecutor.
Derek is very very pretty. Not much of an actor. The concept of the film is a spunky Dead End Kid. The novel twist is the kid did it... and winds up in the electric chair. That's full on. But we lose sympathy.
Who else could've played this? James Dean then too young. Farley Granger? Robert Wagner? Tony Curtis? Actually you know Tony Curtis would've been amazing.
You can feel the censors working on this. Still, well directed by Nicholas Ray - handling of the minor roles is strong, visuals are good, and Bogart is reliable. His character isn't that important - maybe if his daughter had fallen for Derek and been the girl who kills herself. Give Bogart some stakes there.
Interesting. With a knock out young star this would be a lot more famous.
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