What makes it different from others?

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It's curious that I happened to see The Threat now as we in my area of Western New York are now in the wake of the killing of one and the capture of a second fugitive who broke prison. It was reported that one of them was just like Charles McGraw, known to have a grudge against the people who sent him to prison. McGraw would have been better off had he kept running as he's not only a mean customer, but a very shrewd one.McGraw busts out of the joint and he'll flee to Mexico, but first he's got a score to settle with detective Michael O'Shea and District Attorney Frank Conroy who put him in the joint. He captures both of them and also O'Shea's car equipped of course for police calls so he's keeping track of the manhunt. McGraw also takes his former girlfriend Virginia Grey by force because he's not sure if she didn't rat him out. And Grey can't convince him she didn't.The Threat is one no frills and never let up exciting short film about a manhunt for a dangerous man. McGraw who played a lot of mean hoods was never meaner and threatening than in The Threat.Robert Shayne also has a plum role as the police inspector coordinating the manhunt who doesn't know that O'Shea is a captive until almost the end. How he tips him off is something you have to see. Shayne is best remembered as Inspector Henderson on the Superman show and usually it was nothing more for him to do than take in the bad guys after Superman captures them. I'd like to think Shayne's role here was something that showed Henderson capable of real police work without Superman.The Threat is really top notch Charles McGraw and a top notch noir thriller.

Except for the light-hearted beginning and end, this is one hard-boiled cookie of a movie, (my apology to gourmets). Kluger (McGraw) may take hostages for criminal purposes, but the screenplay takes no prisoners. It's smart, tough, and efficient, another minor gem from RKO's golden post-war period. And who better to act out the gritty script than the jut-jawed McGraw, a role that fits him like a glove. And when he barks out orders to his underlings, I had to remind myself I wasn't included. If there were B-movie Oscars, which there should have been, he would be richly deserving.Anyhow, the plot manages to turn the familiar prison break fugitive into an exciting chase across California, replete with a number of clever touches and a few surprises from an unflinching camera. I also like Virginia Grey (Carol) who specialized in sad-eyed, soulful parts as she does here. Still, I'm not sure the movie did O'Shea's (Ray) career much good since he's definitely second fiddle to the all-dominating Mc Graw. Too bad the movie's so obscure, since it shows in spades the vigor of the B-movie at its purest level.

***SPOILERS*** With convicted murderer Donald "Red" Kluger, Charles McGraw, busting out of Folson prison the lives of those involved with his capture and conviction Det. Ray Williams, Michael O'Shea, and D.A Baker McDonald, Frank Conroy, are in serious danger. Kluger swore that they'll pay for what they did to him and now he's to keep his promise. That's By kidnapping the two with the help of his fellow hoods Nick Damon & Lefty, Anthony Cruso & Frank Richards, and holding them as hostages in this rundown shack in the middle of the California Desert! Not only that Kluger kidnaps his former gun moll night club singer Ann Williams, Julie Bishop, who he feels ratted him out to the police as well as took off with the $100,000.00 in cash he hid in a bus locker in downtown L.A. Still on a roll Kluger hijacks a moving truck together with it's driver Joe Turner, Don McGuire, to make his getaway amid some dozen police and state trooper road blocks. This all within the first 15 minutes of the movie! What a busy guy this Kluger is!Now in the middle of nowhere in the hot and dry California Desert the Kluger gang wait for pilot Tony Anzo (Ben Weldon), Ann's former boyfriend, to land pick up and fly them to safety across the border into Mexico. It's in fact Tony who can clear up this confusion in Kluger's mind if Ann really took the cash he had hidden away and ratted him out to the police! Which makes you wonder on which side, the police or Kluger gang, that she's on!**SPOILERS** As you would have expected in that there's no honor among crooks in that it's in fact Kluuger and his gang who end up doing themselves in before the police show up. There's also Ann who's on Kluger's sh*t list and whom he treats like dirt during the entire movie who in the end is the one person who ends up blasting him with his own gun: The only one of the Kluger gang's guns that had live bullets in them.P.S The John Garfield looking tough guy actor Michael O'Shea fit perfectly in the part as detective Ray Williams in him coming from a long line of police family members, all his five brothers ended up being cops, himself. Not only that in the 1960's O'Shea became an undercover US Government CIA Agent which showed that what you saw of him on screen was in fact the real McCoy or better yet real O'Shea!

As is the case in hundreds of Hollywood films, "The Threat" was filmed on location throughout the Los Angeles and Southern California area. Cities like Barstow, Palm Springs and Riverside are mentioned constantly. The story climaxes in the ubiquitous desert hide-a-way.The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is after escaped psycho killer "Red" Kluger, played brilliantly by veteran actor Charles McGraw. Inspector Murphy (Robert Shayne, known to many of us as Inspector Henderson of "Superman" fame) leads the manhunt. Average story line.