Joe Gargen (George Raft) is an ex-con, who takes a job at a tire factory. Trouble seems to be brewing as factory workers have been enticed to borrow money to payoff gambling debts. The factory owner knows of Gargen's past and offers him a job to go undercover to learn how his business is being infested by loan sharks. Gargen finally goes to the dark side to bust up the organized loan racket.

May not be true noir, but crime stopping in B&W with thrills and shadows. Kudos to director Seymour Friedman. Rounding out the cast: Dorothy Hart, Paul Stewart, Helen Westcott, John Hoyt, Russell Johnson and Margia Dean.

Loan Shark finds George Raft an ex-con come to live with his sister Helen Westcott after his release. Their neighbor and secretary to the owner of the factory where Westcott's husband is employed, Dorothy Hart puts in a good word for Raft for a job.

Owner Charles Meredith has a special job in mind for Raft, investigating and finding out who's behind a group of loan sharks who have been putting many of his employees in their debt. Raft doesn't want this kind of work, but changes his mind when his brother-in-law Bill Phipps is killed.

But unfortunately this involves Raft going undercover and working for the gang until he can find out who the real boss is. He makes a lot of enemies, including Westcott and Hart until the job is done.

The film was done for B picture studio Lippert films and possibly at a major studio it would have had a lot of the plot holes filled. The writing could have used some improvement, but action goes along at a nice pace and Raft is perfectly cast in the hero part. During this time Raft was doing most of his work in B films and some of them are not bad at all. Loan Shark is one of them.

It sure was odd seeing a 57 year-old George Raft playing essentially the same role he'd been playing almost twenty years earlier--especially since the stuntman they used for him looked much younger and a lot more fit! Also, having a 27 year age difference between him and his girlfriend also strained the limits of credibility. However, if you can ignore the oddness of the casting, then it's a very good example of Film Noir that is sure to please lovers of this genre.

Raft plays a man who has just gotten out of prison for assault. He genuinely wants to go straight, but unfortunately the job prospect he has wants him to do some undercover work to determine who's in charge of a local loan shark business. He turns the job down, but when his brother-in-law is soon killed by these thugs, he changes his mind and works his way up through the racket to find "Mr. Big".

An exciting script, very good acting and pacing make this a fine fine example of Film Noir. If you liked this film, try to see Alan Ladd in APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER. The plot is very similar, though the Ladd film is a good bit grittier and tougher.

By the way, although this is a good film, Raft's prospects in Hollywood were pretty bleak at this point in his career. Raft made a habit of turning down amazing roles and by the 1950s he was starring in mostly B-pictures. According to IMDb, he'd "turned down High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942) and Double Indemnity (1944)"--yikes!