“Dassin's one great movie, better even than the other Hellinger-produced Naked City. Here the setting is a prison and the film was made in that golden period when locations, atmospheric black and white photography and a sense of speed and urgency were dominant. The story is tight (though brutal, with one savage murder of a stool-pigeon heavily cut) and the social concern of the piece is genuine and thorough. Very much in line with the Fox films of the period.”