Among several hard-bitten, low-budget noirs directed by Phil Karlson in the fifties (Phenix City Story and The Brothers Rico have both played PFA in recent years), 99 River Street is widely considered the finest example of his energetic style. The plot involves an ex-boxer (John Payne) obsessed with his past, and his actress wife (Evelyn Keyes) who draws him into a murderous intrigue. Since both are given to irreality, the film itself gains several layers of reality, with Karlson taking in his audience just as pitilessly as his characters take one another for dupes. "Karlson hits hard and accurately. He is served to perfection by cinematographer Franz Planer, who has saturated the wholly nocturnal cityscape with a grimy malevolence.... 99 River Street has a harsh unity of mood; spaces and structures are redolent of pain and fear. The result is a claustrophobic insularity of evil...." (Jack Shadoian, Film Culture, Spring '72).