This is just the sort of Film Noir film I love--one that features realism and gritty dialog PLUS some dynamite actors who are anything but what you'd expect to be starring in a Hollywood film! Like many of the great Noir characters, John Ireland is menacing, kind of ugly as well as cruel and unrepentant. The way he slaps around his girl and the darkness of his soul made him a great leading thug in this movie. His nemesis is Hugh Beaumont (yes, that's the Beaver's dad) and he did a decent job overall as the lead investigator except for one very, very brief moment when he planted a very clumsy kiss on the leading lady--this just didn't make much sense and didn't fit at all into the film.The bottom line is that this is a good detective film--much like the original DRAGNET movie or T-Men. While you don't see the familiar Noir stars (such as Edmund O'Brien), it does deliver in regard to mood, snappy dialog and intensely gritty realism.

John Ireland plays Duke, a thief who dumps his wounded partner, sets up a frame for an innocent young man, then goes around knocking off people who are wise to what's going on or who have money he wants or who otherwise crimp his cool, manipulative style. At the end he is caught and killed in a shootout with the good-guy cop. C'est tout.The acting isn't as poorly done as the script. Ireland is one dimensional, but the head honcho is kind of neat, an older guy fond of quoting Oscar Wilde. I'd never heard of the good girl, Shiela Ryan, and now I know why. I keep getting her name mixed up with the far more appealing and vulnerable girl from "Odd Man Out." Jane Randolph plays a hardened whorish blond who is Ireland's property. It's impossible to fathom what appeal he has for her. He slaps her around, scowls constantly, insults her, and tells her things like, "Why are you getting tough with me? Crackin' up like that. Drinkin' like a fish. I don't like people who get tough with me." She's his devoted accomplice in the frame too, at least until her conscience gets the better of her and she wants to spill the beans to the cops, at which point what happens to her is what happens to all of the people who try to cross or get tough with John Ireland. When she whines she sounds like Claire Trevor in "Key Largo." But I don't care is she's garish and nasty. To me she'll always be the pointy chinned adoring friend of Kent Smith in "The Cat People." Try to shake it as she might, she still has the screen presence of a light cream-filled pastry.The problem with the movie is that -- directed by Anthony Mann or not -- it has no flair. None of the characters has much complexity to begin with and the director adds nothing to what is essentially a routine B crime movie. Nothing INTERESTING happens on screen. When someone is shot, he or she falls down and dies -- period. The camera placement and staging are functional, no more than that. Nobody is quirky. Well, maybe the Oscar Wilde quotes and the perfumed bullets are a nod in that direction but they don't clear the bar. Neither has anything to do with the story. And the guy who is in the hot spot? The innocent young man who was framed? He disappears half way through and we don't see him or hear about him again.I guess there IS one particularly noticeable feature of the movie. It's dark. The photography in fact isn't bad. At least we can feel the photographer trying to do something. There are lots of table lamps casting like upward and making sinister faces into images of evil. Sometimes the lighting overreaches. When Ireland is plugged (oh, so implausibly) at the end and sinks down out of the frame, the only lighted object we can make out is his right ear sliding deliberately from our sight.

Hugh Beaumont, known to millions as Mr. Cleaver, stars with John Ireland in "Railroaded," a second feature that also features Sheila Ryan, Jane Randolph, and Ed Kelly. This is a fairly routine story of a young man framed for a murder/robbery he had nothing to do with. The robbery was an inside job, and the insider (Randolph) deliberately leads the police astray with her I.D. Poor Ed Kelly, who plays the wrongly accused man, is interrogated harshly with no lawyer present. Meanwhile, the police can't find the gun that killed the policeman on the scene or the stolen money. The accused's sister (Ryan) gets involved in trying to find out who did it. And of course, that would be the sinister John Ireland, a mean, violent man who's easy with his gun and fists.The thing that's unusual about this movie (for me anyway) is seeing women shot. Not only that, but Ryan and Randolph have an amazing catfight. The violence shown against the character played by Randolph is disturbing - but we've seen that before.I know some of the other comments mentioned that this is film noir and a real treasure - well, the print was pretty dark, but calling this a film noir is a stretch. Although well directed by Anthony Mann, this is a run of the mill B. As they say in the antiques world, "Just because it's old doesn't mean it's valuable" - well, just because this is old doesn't make it a classic.

"Railroaded!" is hyped as film noir but it is not...classically. The look is dark and the mood is somewhat somber, but, the principal characters are aloof. Classic film noir involves principal characters with whom we empathize at least a little (Walter Neff, Dix Handley)but who either die or are fully demoralized in the end (whom the French called the 'damned man'). The only person we give a hoot about is poor Steve, the accused. Steve (Ed Kelly) is a small role not really involved in the story despite being the object in it.Maltin rates "Railroaded!" with 3 stars. That's one star too many. Ireland and Sheila Ryan give good performances but standard all the way. The best line is by Steve's mother about her cake ("Who could eat a cake with a gun in it?").