As a teenager, petty thief Tolly Devlin sees his father savagely beaten to!nbsp;death in a dark alley, and payback becomes his life's pursuit. In Fuller's purest film noir, starkly photographed!nbsp;by Hal Mohr in deep shadows with occasionally ricocheting cameras,!nbsp;Cliff Robertson's Devlin is a brutishly single-minded protagonist, a far!nbsp;cry from the wily but magnetic pickpocket of Pickup on South Street or the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold in The Naked Kiss. Doomed!nbsp;by his revenge motive, he is an amoral hood through and through: his substitute-mother!nbsp;cleans his wounds and tries to keep him straight, but he still eyes the!nbsp;combination lock on her safe; when a would-be lover declares her desire for his children, he responds with insults and derisive laughter. In!nbsp;Fuller's noir universe, there's no redemption for the pathologically obsessed.-Peter Conheim