Meller For Action Fans" ("Meller" being industry slang for a melodrama) but a "fair dualler" for general audiences. The semimonthly trade periodical, which had a targeted readership of predominantly theater owners or "exhibitors", does find some fault with the plot's lack of clarity, namely that it does not establish for moviegoers the crime boss's ultimate goals. Nevertheless, Film Bulletin states that Columbia's crime story "will please the dyed in the wool action fans with its rugged narrative of skullduggery along the waterfront, terse dialogue and the frank brutality of the several physical encounters." Photoplay, the leading movie fan magazine in the United States in 1951, also recommends the film in its October issue, citing most notably the drama's sustained levels of suspense and action. Describing the feature as "gutsy and fisticuffy", Photoplay informs its readers, "Suspense rides throughout the action-packed story and the scientific methods of police in action should prove frightfully discouraging to the on-the-lam set everywhere. Later reactions to the film In the decades after the release of The Mob, reviewers' opinions of the film appear to be more mixed than those found in the print media in 1951. Hollywood screenwriter Carl Macek in the 1979 publication Film Noir: The Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style describes the transformative performance of the film's star, noting that "Crawford takes the simple role of Johnny Damico and converts it into a noir characterization of toughness and vulgarity." Macek, however, categorizes The Mob as largely a "rehash" of the content and "staccato pacing" of pre-World War II urban crime pictures. Later, in 1984, film historian Spencer Selby reinforces that view in his book Dark City: The Film Noir, describing The Mob as "About as close as noir ever came to resurrecting the 1930s gangster film." Film critic Dennis Schwartz in his 2002 online assessment also compliments Crawford's performance and other elements of the production, although he rates the screenplay overall as "ordinary" with an all-too-tidy conclusion: References External links 1951 films 1950s crime thriller films American black-and-white films American crime thriller films Columbia Pictures films Film noir Films about organized crime in the United States Films directed by Robert Parrish Films scored by George Duning Films based on American crime novels 1950s English-language films 1950s American films