- Based on a 1928 film that was itself adapted from a play by Bartlett Cormack, John Cromwell's version of The Racket pits two honest cops against a bevy of corrupt officials and dangerous mobsters. The cops, Captain Thomas McQuigg (Robert Mitchum) and officer Bob Johnson (William Talman), take the traditional approach of arresting criminals who commit crimes in their precinct. They face a surprisingly stiff headwind, however, from the polictically-minded District Attorney (Ray Collins) and a corrupt detective (William Conrad) on the syndicate payroll. One gathers that the Crime Commission, populated entirely by men with radio announcer voices, wants to help much more than it actually can.
- While corruption and graft are the two abstract villains of the piece, its physical antagonist is a gangster named Nick Scanlon (Robert Ryan). Scanlon is the type of person who doesn't resort to violence in the sense that it is usually his preferred option. At one point, he beats his driver to a pulp and shoves him in the trunk for hesitating to murder two witnesses (Lizabeth Scott and Robert Hutton). He also blows up McQuigg's front porch, injuring McQuigg's wife Mary (Joyce MacKenzie) in the process. Scanlon and McQuigg had a history even before this attack, and McQuigg has the amusing habit of popping in on Scanlon at home. Scanlon's pop-in at the police precinct proves to be decidedly less amusing.
- One of the more interesting notions in The Racket is that the entire criminal syndicate is run by an anonymous entity known as the "Old Man," who is never shown onscreen. Instead, we only encounter the Old Man's confederates, ranging from Scanlon and a dirty lawyer named Connolly (Don Porter) down to a bondsman/notary (Ralph Peters) who happens to own every variety of official government seal and badge. In any case, it's impossible to imagine any modern film allowing the audience to wonder who the Big Man really is rather than spoiling the concept with some implausible last-minute reveal. Although Mitchum is predictably good and Talman surprisingly good (who knew there were hidden depths to Hamilton Burger?), Ryan steals the show as a crook so volatile that even his own barber (Tito Vuolo) is afraid of him.
