The Racket

The Racket pits Robert Mitchum as McQuigg against Robert Ryan as Nick Scanlon. McQuigg's a clean cop, constantly being transferred by corrupt administrative types. Scanlon is an old school local boss type, not real happy with the increasing trend of using money and political influence to get things done. He prefers beatings and killings as ways to eliminate problems.

So McQuigg is trying to bring Scanlon down, and trying to use as assistant D.A. he knows is crooked in the process. It's not a bad ploy. The D.A. is crooked because it has him in line for a judgeship, but McQuigg pitches the idea that helping to bring down organized crime and corruption in the upper levels of state government will possibly propel him to governor. Play on the greed.

The movie has its flaws. It gives Nick a younger brother, one who he's highly protective of, and who has met a lounge singer he wants to marry. Nick, naturally, disapproves, and the singer later becomes a potential witness, if she can be convinced to testify. But Joe Scanlon vanishes entirely from the plot after dashing her plans. There's a bit in there about McQuigg and Nick having grown up together, but it doesn't serve much purpose. McQuigg doesn't much try to play on it to sway Nick, and Nick doesn't use it to try and sway McQuigg. I suppose it just helps them to converse a little more easily. Also, they couldn't have telegraphed one of the deaths any more clearly if they'd place a flashing neon light over his head saying "THIS CHARACTER WILL DIE!"

That said, I did like Nick's frustration with the new way of doing things, and the other people in the organization being equally frustrated with Nick's stubborness. He finds their methods unreliable, they find his too risky and attention-getting. It's a shift, and the inevitable conflict between the old and the new. It makes me wonder if Nick didn't take the drastic steps he did because he was tired of all the nonsense. Or he was trying to make a point.