The documentary style film was popular after the war, with a serious voice narrating the action. A lot of these films had to do with crime, sometimes where the government was involved. In this film, "T-Men," Dennis O'Keefe, Alfred Ryder, and Wallace Ford star. O'Keefe and Ryder go undercover to break a gang of counterfeiters.As a noir, this holds up well. For one thing, it's directed by Anthony Mann, who had a great feel for this type of film. Shot in black and white, it's gritty, it's violent, and it makes great use of light and shadow, courtesy of cinematographer John Alton, another master at this type of film.The acting is okay, with Wallace Ford having a showier role than the two treasury agents.My mother always liked Alfred Ryder on the many television shows in which he appeared; in the '80s, he and his sister, Olive Deering, an actress beloved by Tennessee Willias, often ate at the same restaurant I did. Alfred wasn't crazy about the service. He once said, "There are no more real waiters. Only actors." Since he worked until he died, I'd say he was one of the lucky ones who never saw a table he had to wait on.

T-Men is directed by Anthony Mann and adapted by John C. Higgins from a suggested story written by Virginia Kellogg. It stars Dennis O'Keefe, Alfred Ryder, Mary Meade, Wallace Ford, June Lockhart, Charles McGraw and Art Smith. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by John Alton. Plot finds O'Keefe and Ryder as dedicated Treasury agents assigned to go undercover to break up the counterfeiting ring at the center of The Shanghai Paper Case. Posing as low ranked hoodlums left over from a long thought of disbanded gang, the two men find themselves immersed in a dark underworld of violence and deceit. Getting in was easy, coming out alive is a different matter.The first pairing of director Anthony Mann and master cinematographer John Alton, T-Men is tough semi documentary type film noir that manages to break free of its plot simplicity confines to become a fine movie. Beginning with a foreword delivered by a stoic Treasury official, the film initially feels it's going to be standard gangster/cops fare. But once our two intrepid agents go undercover and we hit the underworld, Mann and Alton shift the tone and the film becomes a different beast. The psychological aspects start to dominate the narrative, as both O'Keefe and Ryder cast aside their humanity to be at one with the grubby world. Under examination is the thin line between the law and the lawless, our two good guys are battling inner conflicts, their natural good instincts, but being bad has come easy. The edges of the frame have become blurred.The psychological tints would mean nothing without Alton's photography, it's the key element and therefore becomes essential viewing for film noir aficionados. His deep focus chiaroscuro compositions are very striking, and tell us more visually than anything being said vocally. How he frames the heroic agents in the same shadowy light as the bad guys helps keep us the audience in deep with the shift from good world to bad world. This mise-en-scène style has taken over, it's a life force all of its own, and as good as O'Keefe, Ryder and McGraw (always great to see him playing the muscle) are, it's the photography that is the main character here. Mann does his bit, also, sweaty close ups and up-tilt camera work adding to the general disquiet hanging heavy in every room. While his construction of the films most shocking scene, involving a steam bath, is so good its been copied numerous times since.Not as gritty as Raw Deal, which Mann, Alton and O'Keefe made the following year, but still as tough as old boots and cloaked deliciously with a shadowy beauty. 8/10

If anyone has doubts about the enormous talent of Anthony Mann, see this film. Made with a tiny budget and also to praise the Treasury Department this film grabs you from beginning to end. One of the greatest virtues of Mann is not to succumb to clichés or anything that might seem fake. The plot is about two men from the Treasury who go after a gang which is making false bills. In order to infiltrate the gang they must pass as men with dirty pasts. To keep their fake identity they pass through painful ordeals, like watching one of their own being killed, and not react, or meet his wife and act like he does not know her. There is plenty of suspense in the film keeping you always on the edge.

Get by the introductory speech and T-Men picks up steam (literally) going from a Detroit mob to a San Francisco counterfeiting ring. Two treasury agents go undercover and find out all that they need to know, but also find it difficult to stay alive. Tailing one suspect into Chinese herb shops and steam rooms, and then into a restaurant with a South Pacific motif, which is the locale for one of the great scenes in the film, trading samples of counterfeit cash that are folded like airplanes, reaching an agreement about paper and plates (one side has one, the other side has the other), all the little details that could have been a bore aren't because the viewer is constantly drawn in by the quality of the pacing, stellar cinematography, the characters ,and the locations.