'Notorious' best sellers don't normally make good movies, but this is a well-made, carefully composed film version of a prime piece of Fifties sleaze, the other side of the coin from such sentimental slices of Brooklyn life as Wedding Breakfast and Marty. Despite its blood, guts, four-letter words and fairly frank portrayal of a struggle for existence in Brooklyn's backstreets, this, too, is sentimental at heart, and even Jennifer Jason Leigh's raucous, breast-baring petty thief is looked on as a tart with a heart in search of a happy ending. German Director Edel looks for, and sometimes finds poetry in these squalid surroundings, even in the strikers' riot which results in mashed bones and cracked skulls. The use of classical music on violin is a trifle overdone, but undeniably effective.

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