Like Bogie in 'The Harder They Fall', here good egg Edmund O'Brien is seduced by degrees into lowlife violent crime -- main motivation: an honest working man can't make it, so if yer smart enough to work a con you'd best get to getting', especially if invited in by a big player.Barry Kelly repulses as a small-time crime boss bully who fancies himself a legitimate businessman. Otto Kruger as the faux-elegant big-time crime boss nauseates, and Don Porter (Gidget's TV dad) as psycho wife-beater and wife-pimp, puts a bland smiley face on pure evil. As his punching bag, Joanne Dru -- beautiful, smart, dignified -- wins and breaks your heart. Robert Osterloh's reptilian hit-man is on target. Sammy White's simple-loyal 'best friend' exemplifies the powerlessness of all the bookies just in it for a decent living. Dorothy Patrick as the mind-my-own-business employee is glamorous and forceful as she wises up.The climax at Boulder/Hoover Dam can't compare with Hitchcock's thrilling finales at famous colossal landmarks, but is skillfully done, and suits the tone of the film. The script stays real and logical, the suspense earned -- all the more satisfying for being somewhat understated.Edmund O'Brien's nice-guy doughy everyman persona works well here -- he trusts the script to show the villainy and does not gild the lily. Smart actor.Honest script and dialogue respects and entertains the audience. It means to teach us how things function and malfunction in illegal horse- and dog-race betting, and succeeds painlessly. 'Preachy' bits exhorting America not to support illegal gambling are merely tacked on to the front and back -- and don't mar the film one iota. If there's any didactic message here, it's that honest work don't pay in today's (1950's) world.

Skirting the periphery of Film-Noir this one probably lands more than not in the Police Film or the Authorities Are Your Friend Category. These Types were Everywhere after the War. This one Preaches about Your "two dollar bet" Financing Organized Crime and Murder. These Movies were not only for Entertainment but for a sort of Public Service.Technology was also a "new" element in Law Enforcement and the Fight against Communism and Films were want to display as much High Tech Stuff as possible. We get quite a bit of that here with Electronic Whiz Kid, Edmond O'Brien strutting His Stuff and landing a Slot with the Local Mob. This is a less Personal Film then most Noir's and tends to paint with a wide brush with its Coast to Coast Crime Syndicate with tangled wires and many Locations.A good tightly wound Thriller, this has an Energy for sure and hardly ever settles down and the Interpersonal is disposed of quite Brutally at times. Interesting and more layered than most, this one has a Bigger Budget and Broader Scope than a typical B-Movie and is a well crafted, if at times Stiff, Expose.

After seeing this movie, you may not look at a telephone repairman the same way again. Actually the result seems closer to the Cagney films of the thirties than to the noirs of the forties. For phone lineman Eddie O'Brien, it's a success story, as opportunity, know-how, and drive propel him to the top of the bookie racket. Fortunately the always energetic O'Brien makes the transition from working stiff to bookie king-pin both dynamic and believable. Then too, we meet some interesting people along the way, including smoothie Otto Kruger doing his best imitation of a smiling cobra, even as young marrieds Joanne Dru and Don Porter practice their 1950's version of open marriage. And in a usual thankless part, moon-faced Barry Kelley who bull-dozes everyone within reach through eyes so pinched, they're barely more than razor slits. Still, it's unheralded bit actors like him that really make movies like this work. Director Joe Newman keeps things moving nicely, even the colorless scenes featuring the forces of law and order don't bog down the pacing. There're also some good location shots in and around LA, with an exhausting climax up and down the the stairwells of Boulder Dam as the giant turbines hum in the background. (I wonder how they get ordinary people who probably just happened to be at the dam that day, to be so natural with a movie camera and crew staring them in the face. Somehow they do.) My favorite part is setting up the "past-posting" scheme, showing how every technical innovation presents a criminal mastermind with a twisted opportunity. All in all, 7-11 may not be a jack-pot dice roll, but it is a decent thriller, entertaining if not exactly memorable.

A better than routine, if not exceptional, noir crime drama, with O'Brien excellent in the lead, and good casting throughout. Opening and closing textural comments convey the sense that this is more of a sensational expose of syndicate control of horse-race betting (a major West coast institution if there ever was one), produced "under threat". That remains to be seen. What is undeniable is that a well-paced tale of one man's ambition is engagingly portrayed. Of particular interest are the wonderful filming locations in the L.A. area -- rich streetscapes--full of marvelous period detail, "Modern" architecture as seen in circular drive-ins, open plan houses, groovy bars ands nightclubs, and some flavor of Palm Springs weekending. With the evolution of O'Brien's character from a telephone repairman into a major crime so well reflected in the improvements in his dress, along with the sartorial variety among the leads, one gets a nice sense of personal style in this period. Worth a look.