THE HOODLUM is a film noir starring one of cinema's true hard men, Laurence Tierney, an actor who was by all accounts just as volatile and scary off the screen as he was on it. Certainly his larger than life presence is exploited to the full in this otherwise uninteresting thriller that desperately lacks a sympathetic character.The story sees Tierney's small-time crook planning a big heist and generally abusing everybody around him, even his own family members. There's implied sexual violence and a general ill feeling towards everyone. Of course the viewer can guess right from the outset what's going to happen to Tierney come the end but this is about the journey there. Sadly, it's not a very interesting journey, too constrained by budgetary deficiency to truly impress or indeed entertain.

Brevity is the only strong point in this sloppy little noir featuring Laurence Tierney and brother Ed. Contrived and rushed it makes little to no attempt to establish veracity and the whole affair has the feel and look of adults acting kids playing cops and robbers in a neighborhood alleyway.Career criminal Vincent Lubeck is up for parole and while all indications point to denial his mother comes in and sobs enough to spring him. He goes to work for his brother at his filling station but still filled with rage and self pity decides to rob the bank across the street. He gets a gang together to look conspicuous then on the day of the robbery simply puts the hose back on the pump crosses the street and gets into a fierce gun battle with armored car guards. The Hoodlum is a mishmash of bad acting and crass composition with complete inattention to detail. The robbery and getaway stumbles, bordering on comic with montages of a fully mobilized LA police force and newspaper stories hitting the streets within ten minutes of the robbery still in progress by way of a three car funeral. Tierney as usual is convincingly threatening but his ticking time bomb demeanor should make it clear to everyone to stay away from the hair brained heist. The rest of the cast more or less walks on egg shells around violent Vince. Intimidating as Tierney is he remains no match for this haphazardly constructed unintentionally comic caper that collapses atop him.

After five years in the jug, a hard-bitten criminal is reluctantly freed by the skeptical parole board, largely on the pleas of his elderly mother; in no time flat, the hood--now pumping gas at a service station owned by his brother--is plotting the robbery of an armored car along with his cronies. Reunited from the low-budget, critically-acclaimed 1945 gangster film "Dillinger", director Max Nosseck and actor Lawrence Tierney are unable to make lightning strike twice. There are some amusingly rough and tough moments but, curiously, this effort is even more cheaply made than the duo's last (and it only runs an hour!). Opening with a brief flash of the epilogue, the flatfooted narrative then precedes to the jailhouse with some ridiculously melodramatic overacting. Tierney is a solidly unsentimental anti-hero, quick-tempered and rotten to the core, yet he connects with the audience instantly. He might have become a star on the level of Cagney or Bogart had the proper vehicles come his way. This one is just a time-waster, though the logistics of a complicated robbery provide minor interest. ** from ****

This is typical but quite entertaining B movie fare. Well, not completely typical because the main character of such fare is generally more sympathetic than Lawrence Tierney is here. He's a guy you love to hate as he gets paroled thanks to his sweet and loving mother and then proceeds to be a total heel, raping and impregnating his sister-in-law, robbing a bank and just an overall not-nice guy. He doesn't even evoke sympathy at his dying mother's bedside and that's one of the perverse charms of the film. The ending in a dump is quite satisfying and prompts a feeling of good riddance to bad rubbish. This is a typically short little B film, cheaply made, ludicrous at times, but fun to watch and one which will be appreciated by fans of 40's and 50's 2nd features.