Anthony Mann is perhaps best known for his 50s Westerns with Jimmy Stewart. But before the Westerns, he made crime films, 14 between 1942 and 1951. The author has looked at screenplays, studio notes and other documents to bring insight to the man and his movies.

The most fascinating part of this book was the brief biography of Anthony Mann, most of which I was totally unaware. The discussions of the films were interesting but I did not find them as insightful as I had hoped.

Anthony Mann is one of the greatly unappreciated directors of the fifties. His westerns with James Stewart not only revitalized Stewart's career but got Mann a place in the list of great western directors. Max Alvarez argues quite persuasively that some of his crime films deserve equal appreciation. His book is worth reading and getss my four star rating just for the opening chapters which are a short biography of Mann, who had quite an interesting childhood and upbringing. Alvarez then goes into great detail about Mann's early films. My main criticism of the book is Alvarez's repetitions of facts in the different sections on each film. Also, he goes quite a lot into the marketing (or lack of it) of each film, a little too much for me since it really doesn't further explain why Mann's early films have not received proper critical respect. But Alvarez does do a great job with his critical explanations of the films, showing the evolution of Mann's directorial vision.