The Underworld Story

The Underworld Story is a 1950 American film noir directed by Cy Endfield and featuring Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, and Gale Storm. Howard Da Silva plays the loudmouthed gangster Carl Durham, one of his last roles before becoming blacklisted.

When newspaper reporter Mike Reese Duryea loses his job at a big city paper he finds that no one else will hire him. Reese borrows money from a gangster and buys half the interest in a smalltown newspaper, The Lakewood Gazette, in the town of Lakeville. The newspaper is owned by Catherine Harris Storm, who immediately has differences with Reese on how the paper should operate. Reese, trying to use the paper as a step up, latches onto a murder of a woman who happens to be the daughterinlaw of a newspaper magnate. When a local black woman is suspected, Reese turns the story into a media circus and soon his reporting is back in the spotlight again. The film is notable for the pejorative use of the word nigger, though this is clearly dubbed, not what was originally filmed.The New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, panned the film. He wrote, It is so poorly made, so haphazard and so full of detectable holes that it carries no impact or conviction, regardless of credibility. Mr. Chester and his associates are free to proclaim, if they wish, that newspaper men are no good. We think the same of his film. ........

Source: Wikipedia