One of my all time favorites.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Columbia was known for often having tighter budgets than the other major studios, but this is a worthy effort. One good point is that they use plenty of exteriors, especially with motor boats and on the mysterious island where most of the story takes place.Raft, Foch and Macready all are very good. The feeling of this movie is much like that of "Key Largo", which was around the same time.The pacing of the film is enjoyable, and there are no slow stretches. There is a lot of character development for viewers to appreciate. The villain of the story would be worthy of a James Bond movie! The front door to his mansion is the biggest front door I've ever seen, worthy of a castle. Take special notice of the villain's huge library room--it's a virtuoso display of imaginative and evocative set decoration. The designer had a lot of fun with that! The movie is a fine example of late 1940's film noir. Raft gives a thoughtful, understated performance. Foch is sultry. Well worth seeing.

**SPOILERS** Tough guy George Raft is fugitive from the law Johnny Rock who's now on the lamb as the genteel and soft spoken hotel florist Johnny Allgero trying to live his life on the straight and narrow. That's until Johnny runs into, while delivering flowers, mystery woman Glenda Chapman, Nina Foch, who's being tracked down by the US Treasury Department. Not at first knowing what he's getting himself into, in his involvement with Glenda, Johnny is soon contacted by US Treasury Agent Schulty, Will Green, who fills him in on all the details.It seems that Glenda's husband Morgan Vallin, George MacReady, together with his Commie secret agents is in the process of destroying the US economy by passing off as much as a half billion dollars in counterfeit money while playing the horses at the local, Hialeah & Gulfstream, Florida racetracks. This gets real serious, which is why the US Government is now taking a keen interest in it, in that Vallin is in fact, even though it's not mentioned in the movie, a paid Soviet Agent himself who's working for the NKVD to undermine with his two Soviet controllers Vetch & Gote, Ivan Triesdault & Walter Rode, the US currency exchange by devaluation the US Dollar in flooding the country, as well as the world, with fake US currency! It's now Johnny's job, like it or not, to stop Vallin and his Commie friends from passing hundreds of millions of fake US dollars through racetracks and casinos by getting in good with him and finding out where he has the phony money stashed! If Johnny succeeds he's get a pardon from the President that will have his sentence of ten years behind bars, at Sing Sing Prison, reduced to time served!Johnny using his wit charm as well as tough guy good looks soon get's Glenda to see things his way in going against her scare-faced husband Vallin and his gang who was keeping her in the dark about what his sinister motives are. Glenda thought that he was just a run of the mill Hollywood type gangster not a Communist Agent planing to destroy her, as well as 150 million other Americans, way of life!Even though George Raft was in his mid fifties at the time he did look and act convincingly, as Johnny Allegro, as the no BS sh*t-kicking though guy that we all got to know and love in his younger days in the many previous gangster films he stared in. We learned earlier in the movie that Johnny while on the lamb from the law did his patriotic duty by joining the O.S.S, predecessor to the C.I.A, and US paratroopers, while in his late 40's, to fight the Japs in the Pacifc! That despite the fact that Johnny was a fugitive from the law at the time that he did it!

While Raft never does any role is any way but very straight forward, the image of the hero is just too starched. Raft ends up on a tropical island without a change of clothes yet in the succeeding days he always appears in the same suit and tie, often with a hat, always perfect. He runs through the steaming jungle and never appears sweaty - what a hero! It is these kinds of conceits that seemed so cool now make these B thrillers just silly. The mastermind, George MacCready, with his smooth evil voice was the real star; the unlikely use of a bow and arrow as his offensive weapon of choice, along with the ease with which this slightly built man drew back the nominally 70 lb bow, made everything fun. No this things don't have to make sense, but they were enjoyable and exciting when the world was simpler and young.

Good crime/gangster film which, as Leonard Maltin notes, has similar elements to 'The Most Dangerous Game' throughout much of its second half.George Raft plays the title character, a reformed hoodlum, who now runs a florist shop (!!) in a hotel. He encounters a mysterious blonde, of the femme fatale variety, and winds up involved in a counterfeiting operation. Most of the action then takes place on an island off Florida where the womens husband is a tall, blonde master-criminal who enjoys hunting with a bow and arrow.Everything here is above average and the film comes together in all areas very well. The interplay between Allegro and the evil, sophisticated Morgan Vallin, is similar to many a James Bond film with mutual distrust and respect between the two antagonists.With good performances all round, a brisk plot and the inventiveness of the storyline, 'Johnny Allegro' is well worth watching for B-movie fans. The director was better known as a cinematographer, and his obvious skills are shown to good effect.