Extremely low budget film with fake sets and backgrounds and typical movie sterotyping. Over the top acting makes it almost laughable.
Growing up around the mob, Joe turns to the syndicate early in life & quickly gains respect, jobs, & a great deal of money. And despite his mother's & his girlfriend's attempts to persuade him to stay out of organized crime, he works his way up the ladder to the top.
I Mobster (1958) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Joe Sante (Steve Cochran) grew up poor as a child due to his immigrant parents but he plans on much bigger things. He ends up working for a gangster as a young age and quickly rises to the top but once on the top he realizes that there's only one place left to go.
"I Mobster" was bottom of the barrel gangster film starring fading actor Steve Cochran and directed by Roger Corman. The ever cost conscious Corman Brothers followed their pattern of hiring largely over the hill actors to play in their films.
Roger Corman directed this 1958 story of the rise and fall of a hoodlum, on what was for him a generous budget. There's an exploitation feeling to this one, which was one of many inexpensive, somewhat backward looking crime films of the late fifties.
"I Mobster" was directed and co-produced by Roger Corman. This means that the production was done very economically and it made money...
I, MOBSTER may have some historical significance, of a sort. This may be the first film based on a paperback original.
Although shot on about 50 cents as a lot of Roger Corman projects were back in the day, Roger Corman if not gold, may have struck a bit of mineable copper with I, Mobster. Steve Cochran who played many a hood most effectively, is more than just effective, he's positively outstanding as a gangster who rises to the top of his profession from the slums.
