bkoganbing Although shot on about 50 cents as a lot of Roger Corman projects were back in the day, Roger Corman if not gold, may have struck a bit of mineable copper with I, Mobster. Steve Cochran who played many a hood most effectively, is more than just effective, he's positively outstanding as a gangster who rises to the top of his profession from the slums. Cochran has two women in his life, one is his mother who too late realizes what she raised. She's beautifully played by Celia Lovsky. The second is Lita Milan who loves him despite the fact that Cochran kills her brother. To be sure by the way a brother played by John Brinkley who was hardly a noble character.The film is about 90% in flashback, as it opens we see Cochran before Senator Robert Shayne's subcommittee on Labor Racketeering repeating his 5th amendment right to deny his answers on the grounds of self incrimination. But as the camera focuses on Cochran doing that, Cochran in his mind narrates his life story for the committee. He tells of his rise from doing errands for the local boss, to becoming the local boss.Back in 1959 the McClellan Committee on Labor Racketeering was in full sway so Corman knew the film would have a timely impact. My only question was why didn't Shayne use a southern accent the way McClellan and earlier Estes Kefauver spoke?Cochran is mesmerizing and charismatic. He has to be for Lita Milan to fall for him. Then again Steve Cochran's bad boys on the big screen always were.He's the main reason and a good reason to check out I, Mobster.

Spikeopath I Mobster is directed by Roger Corman and adapted to screenplay by Steve Fisher from the novel written by Joseph Hilton Smyth. It stars Steve Cochran, Lita Milan, Robert Strauss, Celia Lovsky and John Brinkley. A CinemaScope production, music is by Gerald Fried and Edward L. Alperson Junior and cinematography by Floyd Crosby. Roger Corman was late in coming to the film noir/crime splinter of film making, but in 1958 he manufactured two very accomplished gangster pictures. Machine Gun Kelly starring Charles Bronson was something of a success, so it was hardly surprising to see Corman serve up another helping of gangster cinema with I Mobster. Pic charts the rise of Joe Sante (Cochran), from a boy running bets for a local hood, to being the leader of all illegal and violent operations in the city. There's nothing remotely new here as per the genre scheme of things, it is what it is, a straight forward tale of a bad man who finds himself getting deeper in the mire the higher up the hoodlum ladder he gets. On the side of this normal trajectory is how his climb affects those closest to him, notably the two ladies of his life, Ma Sante and Teresa Porter. Come the resolution of the tale, Joe Sante is hit with the stark realisation of the life he has led. But is it too late for him? Along the way there's some sexy sizzle by way of a show put on by burlesque queen Lili St. Cyr, while Corman even inserts a sex metaphor that's so unsubtle that Hitchcock himself would doubtless have approved. Corman re-teams from "Kelly" with Crosby and Fried, who once again provide crisp black and white images and furious jazz strains respectively. He is well served by his cast, Cochran is too old for the role as written, but he has a magnetic presence. Milan impacts strongly as the one time honest girl turned moll in the name of love, while Lovsky as Joe's weary mother is hugely effective in conveying a parent with a broken heart. Best of the bunch is Strauss as Black Frankie, he's a larger than life henchman and with the writers affording the character some telling passages in the play, Strauss responds in kind. Recommended fare for genre fans after a quick fix of gangster shenanigans. 7/10

c532c I, MOBSTER may have some historical significance, of a sort. This may be the first film based on a paperback original. When I say "paperback original" I'm referring to the flood of two-bit (literally, they sold for a quarter) paperback books that were NOT reprints: these books, published by Dell, Gold Medal (Fawcett) Lion and others had a boom after World war II, taking over the newsstands, drug store racks, etc. and hastening the demise of the pulp magazines. Writers like Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Jim Thompson and Charles Williams got their start in the paperback originals, and established writers like David Goodis and Cornell Woolrich turned to them for quick money.Many of these books have now been filmed by the likes of Truffaut (SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER from Goodis' DOWN THERE) Cornfield (THE 3RD VOICE from Williams' ALL THE WAY) and others -- Jim Thompson most frequently --but as far as I can tell, Roger Corman's I, MOBSTER was the first, from an "anonymous" Gold Medal Original, I, MOBSTER, published in 1951.Can anyone find an earlier?

telegonus Roger Corman directed this 1958 story of the rise and fall of a hoodlum, on what was for him a generous budget. There's an exploitation feeling to this one, which was one of many inexpensive, somewhat backward looking crime films of the late fifties. Steve Cochran, in the title role, is a little too old but still holds the screen with his unique brand of sleazy charisma, showing once again that with the right vehicle he might have become a major star. His performance is sympathetic, and helps make the movie more interesting than it might have been with a cooler actor (Ralph Meeker, say). The script isn't much, and the other actors are no more than adequate. If one has a taste for lowbrow crime films, this one's pretty good, as it evokes its paperback and men's magazine era nicely, and has about it the whiff of an old-time barbershop.