The Undercover Man (1949)

The Undercover Man is a 1949 Columbia crime thriller directed by Joseph H. Lewis.

It is obviously inspired by the Al Capone case. It had become clear that there was no way of convicting Capone for racketeering. Then the Federal Government figured out that they didn’t need to. They could get him for tax fraud instead. They didn’t care what they put him in prison for as long as they put him in prison.

The Undercover Man deals with a similar case set in an unnamed city involving an unnamed big-time gangster (referred to simply as the Big Fellow). This is essentially a police procedural. For Treasury Special Agent Frank Warren (Glenn Ford) and his colleagues it’s a lengthy painstaking investigation. They have to go through thousands of accounts, looking for some small slip-up made by the mobsters. This might sound like a boring setup for a movie but in fact it’s gripping and fascinating.

They cannot find a slip-up but they can find a stool pigeon. This seems likely to solve their problems but it doesn’t and it’s back to the grind. But there is always the possibility of another stool pigeon. No matter how terrified the Big Fellow’s underlings might be there will always be someone crazy enough or desperate enough or greedy enough to sell out even the scariest mob boss. T-Men like Frank Warren know this. It’s just a matter of handling stool pigeons the right way, and making sure they don’t become dead stool pigeons.

The focus is on methodical law enforcement work but also on the effect that lengthy tough dangerous cases have on the investigating officers. The dangers are real and the stress is extreme, and the endless frustrations can wear a man down.

Glenn Ford was perfect casting for a role like this. He was a low-key actor and he plays Frank Warren as a man who has mastered the art of keeping his emotions under control. To be a good T-Man you have to be able to function like a machine, but Ford has no problem showing us that Frank really is a man and not a machine. He can switch off his emotions to get the job done but he has a wife and if forced to choose between the job and his wife he would choose his wife. It’s that stubborn underlying decency and humanity that makes him a formidable enemy to monsters. There were few actors as subtle as Glenn Ford.

There’s a very competent supporting cast with Barry Kelley as the very crooked but very clever Mob lawyer O’Rourke being the standout.

Nina Foch as Frank’s wife gets almost nothing to do. That is perhaps deliberate. The focus is on Frank Warren. His love for his wife is a central motivation for him but there’s no need for the movie to get bogged down in the details of his domestic life. Frank Warren and O’Rourke and the battle of wits between them provide the core of the movie.

This is not film noir. It has none of the key ingredients of film noir. It does however have some of the tone and feel of the movies that would later be labelled as film noir. You could say it’s noir-tinged. Mostly it’s a very tough very gritty hardboiled crime thriller/police procedural.

It has a touch of that semi-documentary (or pseudo-documentary) approach that was becoming fashionable in movies like The Naked City. Burnett Guffey’s cinematography helps.

Incidentally there are no undercover men at all in this movie!

Joseph H. Lewis is best-known for Gun Crazy and The Big Combo but some of his more obscure movies such as A Lady Without Passport and Cry of the Hunted are worth tracking down. Maybe The Undercover Man is not quite top-tier Lewis but it’s tense and gripping and it has an authentic feel and it’s highly recommended.

The Powerhouse Indicator Blu-Ray provides a very nice transfer. The extras include an audio commentary.