Edgar Ulmer put his early training as a setdesigner in Germany and Austria to work on Poverty Row to create some of the mostvisually striking of the B noirs (most famously, Detour). Ruthless, a vitriolicpicture of capitalist America, is certainly one of his best films, his CitizenKane. Zachary Scott portrays an inexorable climber who wields his way to the topon the Wall Street of the twenties. Sydney Greenstreet is the utilities magnatewhose kingdom Scott invades. Blessed with a business sense of avarice andunencumbered by feelings of guilt, Scott is the American dream turned monster.Ulmer recalled, "It was a dangerous script that had to be cut becauseMcCarthy came in. It was written by Alvah Bessie (one of the Hollywood Ten). Theyfought me every step because it was (an) indictment against one-hundred-percentAmericanism, as Upton Sinclair saw it."