A teenager who witnesses the murder of his father vows to exact revenge on the four mobsters involved in the killing.A teenager who witnesses the murder of his father vows to exact revenge on the four mobsters involved in the killing.A teenager who witnesses the murder of his father vows to exact revenge on the four mobsters involved in the killing.
- Director
- Writers
- Samuel Fuller
- Joseph Dineen(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaHanging on the wall in Driscoll's office is a certificate bearing the symbol of the U.S. Army's First Infantry Division - the unit that Samuel Fuller served in during World War II and depicted in The Big Red One (1980). The same type style for the infantry's numeral "1" is also featured in a reading campaign poster in front of National Accounts, the gangster headquarters building. The certificate is for the 16th Infantry Regiment in which Fuller was a corporal.
- GoofsThe opening sequence takes place in December 1939, and Tolly is 14 years old. The bulk of the story begins in June 1960 and takes place immediately thereafter. Sandy comments to Tolly that he's 32 years old now.
- Quotes
Sandy: Why don't you take a good look at yourself. What do you see? A doctor? A scientist? A businessman? You see a scar-faced ex-con. A two-bit safecracker. A petty thief who don't know when he really made the big time. Where do you come off to blast her? No matter what she's been, what she's done. She's a giant! And you wanna know why? Well, I'll tell ya. Because she sees something in you worth saving. If only one tenth of one percent of all the good in her could rub off on you, you'd be a giant, too. But you're a midget! In your head, in your heart, in your whole makeup. You're a midget!
- ConnectionsEdited into Gli ultimi giorni dell'umanità (2022)
- SoundtracksThe Anniversary Waltz
(uncredited)
Written by Dave Franklin and Al Dubin
Hummed by Mrs Farrar when Tolly visits her
Young David Kent suffers the loss of his father who was beaten to death at the hands of four thugs. Later on he takes up a life of crime and goes to jail. By now he's an adult and played by Cliff Robertson. One of the four thugs who murdered dad is dying in the prison hospital and confesses and names to Robertson his accomplices.
After that Robertson works as methodically as Edmond Dantes now the Count Of Monte Cristo working his way into the confidences of the mob bosses who were back in the day the same thugs who killed his old man. He makes a lot of alliances of convenience, one being a hooker played by Dolores Dorn, another being a special federal prosecutor played by Larry Gates.
Robertson is fine as the old style kind of hoodlum that would have found a home in the Warner Brothers gangster flicks of the Thirties. However for my book Dolores Dorn got her career role in Underworld USA. She registers as both tough and fragile at the same time and she does bring out the humanity in Robertson.
As for how it ends, don't think of The Count Of Monte Crist, rather if you've seen the great James Cagney/Humphrey Bogart film The Roaring Twenties than you know how Underworld USA ends.
Sam Fuller did a great job with his cast and Underworld USA is a classic noir/gangster thriller not to be missed.
- bkoganbing
- Sep 16, 2010
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $1,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1