Reviews

I was left unsure why Arthus Roche's name appeared on the credits. The screenplay bears no resemblance to the novel, and I am driven to the conclusion that using the title of a well known book (and hence having to credit it's author) was thought to be a good way of getting an audience for a second rate low budget movie. Of course, the novel being set in a Broadway of extremely dubious morals wouldn't have gone down too well with the US censor, or with the Hollywood moguls who would would also not have been to keen on the portrayal in the novel of a gangster mixing freely with the Broadway bosses. The issue (seemingly well researched in the novel) of the hardware shop as a front for the supply of weapons to the gangs would have been a bit hard to swallow, but with all those plot changes, why not just write a new screenplay?