Apart from the Seventies additions of violence and nudity, this Tony Curtis vehicle is, in construction, attitudes and direction, very much an old-fashioned gangster film, reminiscent of the Legs Diamond and Dutch Schultz sagas of 15 years earlier - except that this is much longer.

Legs and Dutch both crop up here, but only really as patsies for one of several typical shoot-outs or ice-pick murders (nasty).

The tone is deliberately sombre - bright colours are avoided right from the sepiatone start - and Curtis's grim-faced, pinch-cheeked performance reflects his and director Menahem Golan's determination to show Lepke's absolute ruthlessness.

Unfortunately, the domestic scenes involving Anjanette Comer rather weaken the impact of this intent without creating any real sympathy for the central character.

Warren Berlinger's plump right-hand man is the best (and only sympathetic) performance in a film whose action is as cold, hard, steely and efficient as the gun barrels that dispatch their victims in shops, restaurants and even, on one occasion, through a cinema screen.

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