A personal favorite.
Odets and Lehman's script is more than just an indictment of unflinching ambition and the abuse of power, it probes the contradictory but very American emphasis on "being someone."
The story moves right along. I suspect MacKendrick's experience with comedies factored into the film's pacing, with each scene smartly setting up the next and precious few seconds wasted on extraneous plot points.
The film also explores Cold War sexuality, a fascinating element easily missed in the back and forth between Falco and Hunsecker. In trying to keep Hunsecker's sister out of the arms of a jazz singer and under his thumb, the naive girl straddles a virgin/whore identity. Falco and Hunsecker conspire to have the jazz singer smeared as a pot smoking Red, the very essence of dangerous sexuality used to coerce young women into the traditional roles established during the era, nuclear families in the nuclear age. In the mind of her brother, she's far better off under his thumb (and creepy incestuous gaze), further impugning the era's notions of gender and a power structure rotted out from the inside. Great noir films all have a disturbing sexual undercurrent.
At some point, I should probably just break down and spend the ten bucks to own the DVD.