Johnny Allegro (George Raft) is a florist in Los Angeles with a dark secret. Femme fatale Glenda Chapman (Nina Foch) gets him to help elude the police. Treasury Department agents blackmail him into going undercover to discover her secret plot.
Setting up the plot is a little bit wonky and a little rushed. Raft does fine but this cannot rise above its B-movie nature. There is also an element of James Bond villainy and trying to be high class style. I sorta expected Allegro to order a martini although Raft is definitely no Bond. The movie is trying to be a few things at the same time but it falls a little flat. The tension is never raised that high. The bow and arrow is probably the definition of that. It's a little odd but it's not intense. It's also a little camp like summer camp. I'm giving this a passing grade.
Johnny Allegro
1949
Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir / Thriller
Johnny Allegro
1949
Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir / Thriller
Plot summary
Los Angeles hotel lobby florist Johnny Allegro is a man with a secret: he's a former criminal who escaped from Sing Sing prison. However, Johnny went straight and became a legitimate businessman. One day, a high-class, well dressed attractive blonde runs into his arms in the hotel lobby and pretends she's his date for the evening. She whispers in his ear that she is being followed, in danger and needs Johnny's help to escape. Intrigued, Johnny agrees to play along and help the stunning blonde beauty. They sit in the hotel bar and talk. Her name is Glenda Chapman and she wants to escape the police detective who sits in the lobby shadowing her. Over the following days, Johnny falls for Glenda who lives in the hotel. Unfortunately, Johnny is visited in his flower shop by Treasury Agent Schultzy, who tells Johnny that he knows about Johnny's real identity and that Johnny is an escaped criminal. However, Johnny is not arrested. Instead, the Treasury Agent asks him to assist the government in locating the source of a huge stash of counterfeit US currency flooding the country. In return, the government is prepared to help Johnny receive a reduced prison sentence for his escape from Sing Sing. Johnny agrees but he's surprised to find out that his new romantic conquest, Glenda, is somehow involved in the counterfeit money scheme. Johnny is torn between his love for Glenda and the promise he made to the Treasury Agents.
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bow and arrow
A Little "Most Dangerous Game" Thrown In
George Raft is "Johnny Allegro" in this 1949 B movie also starring Nina Foch, Will Geer, and George Macready. Raft plays a florist who is in actuality an escaped prisoner in hiding; he's approached by treasury agent Geer to clear his record by getting cozy with a woman he just met (Foch). Her husband (Macready) is distributing counterfeit (and ripping off his Soviet boss). They live on an island in the Caribbean. While she's trying to get out of town and away from the Feds, Raft kills a police officer to help her. Then he insists that she take him along or he'll be captured. This sets him up with her suspicious husband (McCready).
Not bad; the ending is reminiscent of "The Most Dangerous Game." George Raft couldn't act, but for someone who played gangsters so much, he had a warmth and a smoothness. By 1949, some of his gravitas had gone, but he was still pleasant to watch. When I was growing up, Nina Foch was playing skinny socialites on TV. It's always nice to see her as a young leading woman. Will Geer as the treasury agent is delightful, very laid back.
You might want to see this for the cast.
Too much to handle
Johnny Allegro has George Raft in the title role as an ex-con trying to go straight. Under an alias he's living life as a hotel florist, but manages to get himself involved with the beautiful Nina Foch and get himself framed for a cop killing.
Foch is slightly married to the epicene George MacReady whom the Feds want to nab real bad. It's not just his elaborate counterfeiting operation that they want to shut down. MacReady is being financed by the Soviet Union and he's got quite a setup in distributing counterfeit and raking off a big bundle from his Soviet handler Ivan Triesault. MacReady and Foch live in fine style on an unknown Caribbean island that the Feds would like to know the location of to bust MacReady and his operation. In the end MacReady proves too much for his Soviet bosses.
Not so with Raft and his contact Will Geer who plays a Treasury agent. Geer in many spots steals the film from the leads with a nice laconic performance, not unlike his Wyatt Earp in Winchester 73.
Johnny Allegro is typical of the action/noir type films that Raft was doing at this point in his career. Soon he'd be working for Poverty Row Lippert films and Johnny Allegro from Columbia's B picture unit looked like Citizen Kane next to their stuff.
Fans of George Raft will be pleased. Especially with that ending borrowed from The Most Dangerous Game.