King of the Underworld

Cutting an imposing figure in the formal frock coat and wing collar of a thirties arch criminal while masterminding a gang of latter day zoot-suited spivs against a then contemporary backdrop of drab little offices and bombed out postwar London, the years have not diminished Todd Slaughter in the title role as he personally kills a couple of people and abducts and tries to dissolve feisty heroine Tucker McGuire in a bath of nitric acid.In pursuit detective Patrick Barr occasionally stops fiddling with his pipe and providing a running commentary long enough to adopt a couple of rather good disguises.

Warner Brothers in 1939: Bogart on the way up, Kay Francis on the way out. They were bound to meet – a pity it wasn't a worthier vehicle than this "B"-grade crime melodrama!

Decent remake of Dr. Socrates changes a few things, including the gender of the doctor.

I was surprised to see Bogart at this stage of his career billed over Kay Francis, but as other reviewers have said, this was probably part of Warner's strategy to demote Kay and phase her out. This movie is definitely not a proud moment for either the star on the way up (Bogie) or the one on the way down (Francis).

Married doctors Niles and Carole Nelson save the life of gangster Joe Gurney after he is shot. Niles secretly becomes the gang's doctor but it leads to his death.

"King of the Underworld" paces at a machine gun clip, with Humphrey Bogart as Joe Gurney, a crime boss who quotes Napoleon and fancies himself as the last of the public enemies. When doctors Niles and Carol Nelson (John Eldredge and Kay Francis) perform a difficult surgery and save one of his men, Gurney insinuates himself into their lives with money and power.

The central role in this low-budget crime melodrama really belongs to KAY FRANCIS, and she makes her lady doctor pretty believable. But it's HUMPHREY BOGART who walks off with the show, which is no more than a programmer made on the cheap, by playing up the comic elements of his character.

I wonder if the screenwriter for this film had somebody in mind as a model for the criminal Humphrey Bogart plays. In the 1920s and 1930s there was a major war between Joe Masseria and Salvator Marranzano for control of New York's criminal underworld.

An omnibus film of three episodes of the 'Inspector Morley, late of Scotland Yard, Investigates' series that never really saw the light of day. It covers blackmail, kidnapping, murder and espionage in the continuing conflict between ex-inspector Morley and the villainous Terence Reilly.