Rowland Brown, who wrote and directed this fast-moving crime thriller, made films about the underworld from the perspective of a man who knew what he was talking about: he was a former juvenile delinquent who had done time in jail before he broke into movies as a writer in 1928. When he was given a chance to direct his own scripts, he showed a nice sense of pacing and a good eye for visual detail. The film stars George Bancroft as a big-city bail bondsman, able to hold his own against the crooks and the cops at the same time. The two women in his life are a nymphomaniacal society girl (Frances Dee, here cast refreshingly against type) and a “nightclub hostess” named Ruby Darling, played by Judith Anderson in her motion picture debut. Brown's direction leaves no doubt as to the real nature of Ruby's establishment.
—Charles Hopkins, L.A. Int’l Film Expo 1977