User Reviews

Who knew the dangers of the pinball machine racket? Often in these kinds of movies the hero makes one tiny slip-up that leads him down a path of ruin -- all the poor guy in this movie did was agree to put a pinball machine in his little country bed and breakfast near Portland Oregon. But soon a mob of acid-wielding goons show up, accompanied by pedophilic maniac Frank Gorshin, and force him to turn his place into a full on juke joint. Grown men and women in mixed company leer at the bouncing pinballs and drinks are mixed fast and furious. It all looks like the soda fountain in "Reefer Madness." Eventually we're treated to a party scene where the woman who's supposed to be the best "madame" in the USA serves fruit punch for the guests. It's just that type of movie.

Virginia Gregg's rough features serve her well when she shows maternal concern -- she represents all that is good and sacred in the American Way. Carolyn Craig has strong features as well, and I liked the way she kissed off the yokel he tried to tell her they were "going out in the country" because she had "been around." The ensuing confrontation with Gorshin's hood is definitely a pretty raw depiction of sexual hunger. It's a very effective sequence of events, even if highly predictable. I believe what George (Ed Binns) says when he says "this is one thing that I'm gonna see through, all the way." I guess the interesting thing about the sequence of events is that the girl is exposed to dangerous and aggressive sexuality in both instances, but as it turns out (the boy is contrite and writes a heartfelt letter) one of them was only harmless enthusiasm while of course the other was psychopathic mania. So hard for a good 50s girl to tell the difference! Another sinister aspect of the movie is the union/labor involvement with the pinball racket. I don't know if the movie was made by ultra-conservatives who were trying to smear labor by associating it with the criminal element but that's what it sure looks like to me. Of course just like "corrupt cop" movies they make sure to include at least one good honest labor guy, Al Gray (Francis De Sales). The scene with the labor meeting has some really odd dialog.... "Al Gray will conduct the séance....." On the whole it's not a very memorable movie but I liked the performances and it's a good take on the theme of a little guy who tackles the big criminals. Not a true "noir" movie as some apparently have claimed, at least not in my opinion.

"Memorize this name: Alfred Gray. Do not make a note of it."

As some of the other commentators have pointed out, in the 1950s there flourished a film genre that purported to tell a true story of crime, corruption and violence in an American city. In many ways these films anticipated such dramatic documentary TV shows like City Confidential. The point of interest in this film, Portland Expose, is how the conjunction of gangsters and corrupt union members helped to milk money out of legitimate businesses in Portland, Oregon in the 1950s. While I suspect the story of the tavern owner who went to work for the mobsters to get information on them for the authorities is fictional, I gather the strong-arm tactics of the mobsters were not.

As for the film itself, it is a competent, low-budget affair. With a little trimming here and there, it could stand as an TV episode of a true crime show. Frank Gorshin, who went on to fame as a master voice impersonator as well as showbiz immortality as the Riddler on the campy Batman show of the mid-1960s, is quite good as a creepy hood who gets his just desserts at the hands of a freight train. One chilling moment is the expression of glee on his erstwhile partner's face as he watches the train run over Frank Gorshin's character's body. Edward Binns, who appeared as a character actor on dozens of TV shows in the 60s, is good as the tavern owner who gets the goods on the hoods at great risk to himself and his family.

My only serious problem with the film is that the audience doesn't get to see enough of Portland, OR as it was in 1957. The way the film was shot, most of it could have been taking place anywhere. But, given its limitations of budget, I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

Former film editor Harold Schuster started his directorial career with that fine film, Wings of the Morning, in 1937. After scoring a huge success with My Friend Flicka in 1943, Schuster slowly but surely (with time out for Disney's So Dear to My Heart in 1948) worked his way to the bottom. And that's exactly where this mostly indifferently directed little exploitation movie would lie, if it were not for a couple of hard-hitting and somewhat disturbing action sequences involving Frank Gorshin and his acid-wielding confederate, which amazingly sneaked past the usually vigilant 1957 censors.

This is a film in which the support players steal scenes from the nominal leads right, left and center. True, the dialogue given to Mr Binns and Miss Gregg is as dull as they come, and neither actor has sufficient charisma to overcome the lethargy induced by their predictably ho-hum lines. It's left to the heavies and the minor characters like Jeanne Carmen's heartlessly seductive Iris and Lea Penman's boastful high society madame to give the film class, although twenty-two year old Carolyn Craig interprets her under-age teenager also with memorable skill. True, she is given some effective dialogue, but even when handling the most ordinary lines, she is such a most unusual-looking girl, she immediately rivets the attention. Director Schuster had the good sense to give her plenty of potent close-ups, although they are somewhat undermined by the amount of unwanted attention he lavishes on the undeserving Binns and Craig as well.

Portland Expose- solid exploitation B flick -ripped from the headlines and all.We follow a very straight arrow citizen- an owner of a tavern that goes from solid straight shooter to undercover mob tough guy- in 72 minutes we are shown this thru him doing some collections and talking tough to the mob dudes.Ed Binns is decent as the lead.Look for a young Frank Gorshin in the movie's most notorious scene where he tries to rape the underage daughter of the protagonist.What makes the DVD worth the purchase is the commentary by Lindsley Parsons,Jr.- it is a little dry- but very informative about the making of B pictures and the system they had to pump out these movies.Since the movie was exposing the teamsters- they decided to work outside the union for this picture and where actually threatened by the mobsters.The voice-over tends to muddle the picture and even provide some unintentional chuckles.Worth a rental for the commentary track. C+

This dark semi-noirish crime drama shows the destruction of innocence in a small town when the Rockets move in, focusing their Vengeance on one family whose patriarch goes undercover. There is a hideous scene of attempted rape of is there a rose daughter, with the rapist apply to revile and one of the creepiest characters onscreen since Richard Widmark in "Kiss of Death". Who better to play such an animalistic characters in a young Frank Gorshin, a decade before taking on the role of the Riddler?

I found myself more intrigued by the location footage than the details of the story which is slight. Yes, it does surround the rise of the rackets, but but the characters aren't very well written and the story is slight, Mainly dealing with personalities rather than real people and situations. Still, it's pretty gruesome stuff with a corpse placed on a railroad track as one of the bad guys watches in glee as it is run over by the oncoming train.

This is B material for sure with one interesting character played by Lea Penman, a heavy set older woman who is a combination of Sophie Tucker, Texas Guinan and Thelma Ritter, probably one of the oldest molls in film history, and now one of the top leaders of The Syndicate which intends on taking over the West Coast. It is very apparent how this will end with its paint by numbers narration that makes it one of dozens of the same similar type of narrative that came out throughout the 50's into the 1960's.

Portland, Oregon appears to be one of the most wholesome cities to raise a family and retire. But there is a shady underbelly; two gangs are fighting to place their pinball machines, juke boxes and slots in high traffic roadhouses and hotels. George Madison(Edward Binna)tries his best, but ends up knuckling under to a mob faction. With gambling machines in his roadhouse, Martin is making money hand over fist. But when a perverted "wise guy"(Frank Gorshin)tries to rape his daughter...Madison agrees to help law officials by wearing a wire in hopes of putting an end to Portland gambling. Nice film noir directed by Harold D. Schuster. Other players: Lawrence Dobkin, Rusty Lane, Carolyn Craig, Virginia Gregg and Joseph Marr.

(Some Spoilers) Trying to muscle in on Portland Oregon's taverns and restaurant trade the Seattle Mob at first infiltrates and then takes over the local teamster unions using them to blackmail anyone, depending on the truckers delivering their booze and food products, who doesn't play ball with them.

It's when the mobsters started putting pressure on tavern owner George Madison, Edward Binn, that things started to backfire on them. Madison a hard working man and WWII vet at first gave into the mobs demands in buying their exclusive booze, trucked in by the corrupted teamsters, for his customers as well as installing a number of pinball machines. It's when the mob started to press their luck on him that George started to push back.

It's when Seattle mobster the hot in the pants, for underage females, Joe, Frank Gorshin, attacked and tried to rape George's teenage daughter Ruthie, Carolyn Craig, that George took matters into his own hands. At first cold cocking the surprised, in George coming to his daughters rescue, Joe and knocking him out cold it was then decided by Joe's bosses to ice him, since he wasn't worth all the trouble that he caused, by laying him on the railroad track, drenched with booze, and run over making it look like he was a drunk who lost his way to the ginmill. Back at the tavern George saw that booze and pinball machines where soon to be replaced with drugs and prostitution in his family oriented establishment and decided, with the cooperation of the local and still uncorrupted police, to go undercover and get the goods on the mob thus putting their sleazy operation out of commission.

Using a hidden tape recorder, circa 1957, that was about the size of a lunch-box George started getting enough evidence on the mobsters, by playing along with them, to put them away for life. It's when mob moll Iris, Jeanne Carmen, started to get a little close to George, on the dance floor at his tavern, that she noticed a bulge, not where she expected it to be, under George's clothes that alerted her that he was up to no good and relayed that very important information to her boss.

***SPOILERS*** With George now exposed, thanks to Iris, as a police plant the mobsters started to give him the business by working George over in having him tell them when the tape recordings he took of them where hidden. It was when George's daughter Ruthie who had fled Portland, together with her mom and kid brother, for her own safety showed up unexpectedly to attend the senior high-school dance that she together with her pop, George, was held captive by the mobsters. It's when the mobsters threatened to disfigure Ruthie's pretty face with a vile of acid is when George just lost it. With what seemed like superhuman strength George broke loose and took on the entire Portland Mob almost singlehanded until the police arrived not to rescue him but the mobsters whom he was on the verge of annihilating!

Filimed entirely in and around the "City of Roses" Portland Oregon the movie "Portland Expose" shows how one man pushed to he brink can become a one man demolition squad to the shock and surprise to those who did the pushing. It was the Portland Mobs misfortune to find that very important lesson out the hard and bare knuckles way!

Who would have dreamt of casting Edward Binns as a superhero? The fine character actor is the image of an ordinary, square citizen, but in Allied Artists' entertaining exploitation movie Portland Expose, he is not only a guy who stands up against the mob but signed handedly, defeats an extremely powerful criminal organization that has expanded from Seattle to take over Portland, just because they tried to open up his little local tavern to pinball machines and slot machines (with plans for "opening it up" to drugs and prostitution down the line.

His acting is fine, but early on I couldn't buy the notion that Binns would repeatedly risk his life (and significantly the lives of his nuclear family) over and over again with even a hint of fear. We can imagine Joe Don Baker or more recently The Rock taking on all comers without batting an eye (though Dwayne Johnson would certainly raise an eyebrow), but Binns' courage, however enviable, isn't believable.

A highlight comes early in the movie when mob thug Frank Gorshin is terrific, not imitating any of his screen heroes (Lancaster, Widmark) but being highly original as a pervert who really digs young girls and violently assaults Binns' teenage daughter Carolyn Craig with rape in mind. He later gets to save Carolyn again when higher-ups in the mob are about to throw acid in her face to get papa to reveal where he's hidden incriminating audio tapes that are evidence of their wrongdoing.

It's a fine little movie, which significantly emphasizes the infiltration of organized crime into labor unions (e.g., Hoffa).