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.

George Raft is "Johnny Allegro" in this 1949 B movie also starring Nina Foch, Will Geer, and George Macready. Raft plays a florist who is in actuality an escaped prisoner in hiding; he's approached by treasury agent Geer to clear his record by getting cozy with a woman he just met (Foch). Her husband (Macready) is distributing counterfeit (and ripping off his Soviet boss). They live on an island in the Caribbean. While she's trying to get out of town and away from the Feds, Raft kills a police officer to help her. Then he insists that she take him along or he'll be captured. This sets him up with her suspicious husband (McCready).Not bad; the ending is reminiscent of "The Most Dangerous Game." George Raft couldn't act, but for someone who played gangsters so much, he had a warmth and a smoothness. By 1949, some of his gravitas had gone, but he was still pleasant to watch. When I was growing up, Nina Foch was playing skinny socialites on TV. It's always nice to see her as a young leading woman. Will Geer as the treasury agent is delightful, very laid back.You might want to see this for the cast.

I first saw JOHNNY ALLEGRO over 60 years ago at age 11. Back then kids would often enjoy certain adult movies and stretch their minds and outlook a bit; unlike 2010 when adults have to settle for badly made boring action movies aimed at 9 year old's, with few crumbs for grown ups. I hunted for JOHNNY ALLEGRO for over 5 years on eBay and other sources of rare movies before finally buying a copy made off the Mystery Channel.Raft plays an ex-con on the lamb working as a florist in LA when he's picked up by long-and lean Nina Foch trying to bypass the detective on her tail. Before very long he's deeply whisked away to a private island off Florida which serves as HQ for a band of traitors trying to destroy the American economy with a flood of counterfeit money. George MacReady is the chief bad guy, a skilled and very intelligent psycho.Poor tough guy George Raft is forced to contend with repeatedly having to kiss Nina Foch who is 2 1/2 inches taller. Being a He-man he rises to the occasion nicely; and I'd like to try that someday: kissing one taller.An enjoyable mystery, not a film noir, like they never make anymore.

**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!