When the character of nine year old Tommy Sinclair ('Gordon Gebert' (qv)) first appears, his traveling nurse clearly calls him "Tony".
For the rest of the film he's called "Tommy", the character's official name.
This movie was mentioned in David Mamet's book, Bambi vs. Godzilla, as an excellent example of Film Noir or "Poverty Row" film.
Solid, taut, straight forward story.
Narrow Margin is one of the great films noir of all time, directed by A-list director Richard Fleischer. The bulk of the drama is set in the claustrophobic setting of a train.
Richard Fleisher directed this taut and surprising thriller that stars Charles McGraw as Detective Sergeant Walter Brown, who is assigned to escort and protect a mobster's wife(played by Marie Windsor) who is going to testify against him before a grand jury, and the efforts of the mobster and his henchmen to stop her. She is traveling by train, and the only trouble is that the assassins don't know what she looks like, which is to her advantage, though of course they do track her down, though Walter does his best to stop them.
(*Notable movie quote*) - "She's the sixty-cent special. Cheap.
If this film is not covered in film school it should be. The right cast of relatively unknowns, a good script, excellent directing on a low budget.
Often cited as a classic of film noir, "The Narrow Margin" works more like part-pulp fiction, part-police procedural with all guts and no heart. Sentiment takes a holiday in this enjoyable, tough- nosed suspense story of a cop pursued by gangsters on a speeding train.
As long as everyone is giving this film rave reviews, I may as well throw a little cold water since I'll be the only one doing it. I've got several complaints about the story.
Two LAPD detectives arrive in Chicago to pick up a witness to testify in L.A.
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