Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

John W Chance This film is included as part of the "Forgotten Noir" DVD series, which really means B-movie bottom billed Robert Lippert movies. Be warned! No wonder they are forgotten. The best Lippert Picture, however, now in a new fantastic DVD version, is 'Rocketship X-M' (1950) with uncredited script by Dalton Trumbo!This one is a fair time passer. It's clearly built as a vehicle for George Raft, (who is in almost every scene) and his screen persona as a "tough guy." He walks like he has a coat hanger stuck in his back (a walk 'copied' by Jimmy Carter and Al Gore): this is the kind of walk you practice with a book on your head to improve your posture. It doesn't seem right these days for a tough guy, but Raft's look and famous staccato monotone compensate greatly for his stiff walk.It's not really a noir film. Noir films have nice guys being caught up in a corrupt world-- they had titles like 'Undercurrent,' 'Whirlpool,' 'Quicksand,' 'Detour,' 'Roadblock,' 'Criss Cross,' etc. and often were shot in extremely low light and shadows like the amazing 'Out of the Past'(1947). This one is actually 'the good guy goes undercover to trap the Big Boss.'Anyway, George Raft carries the film. For fans of George Raft, this is a must see. He's in his 'element' here with loan sharks, thugs and criminals, not hanging out in Morocco in the Foreign Legion. When he's on screen, we watch him. We also get great bad guy from Paul Stewart, the butler from 'Citizan Kane' (1941). With those eyes and eyebrows he's so good as a heavy! A young John Hoyt is also nicely bad. Dorothy Hart, a former fashion model, as Raft's 30 year younger love interest (!) has eyes that put you on Cloud 9. She quit movies and mostly did work for the UN, since she "hated Hollywood." This movie may be one reason why.This is also for fans like me who enjoy seeing Los Angeles in the early fifties. Hey, when I was growing up in the fifties in the boondocks of Northern California (Petaluma), seeing black and white films of crime in LA, added to the thrill of my first visit to Los Angeles. Best of all, of course, is 'Kiss Me Deadly' (1955) where we get to see the apartments next to Angel's Flight on Bunker Hill before they were razed, and the super noir 'D.O.A.' (1951) which takes us inside the Bradbury Building in downtown LA.Not an Oscar contender. I give it a four.

femme_fatale5367 I found this little gem in the library. It was part of a "Hollywood's Attic" collection and had no information on the case other than the title, but I decided to check it out and have a few laughs. When I saw the credits, I decided anything with George Raft couldn't be all bad and decided to watch it through. Even though he was middle aged at the time, Raft was true to form in his portrayal of the ex-con tough guy infiltrating a loan shark operation responsible for his brother-in-law's death. Nice acting by everyone, including a young Russell Johnson. Definitely not Oscar caliber, but worth it if you're a film noir fan.

julianbristow111 Loan Shark is a nice little gangster melodrama centering in on the loan sharking racket. By the time this movie was made, George Raft's popularity was dwindling. But for George Raft fans, this movie still makes the grade. In my opinion, with the exception of "Each dawn I Die", "They drive by night" and "Invisible Stripes", his best movies were done in the 1950's. In Loan Shark, Raft is cast as Joe Gargan, a tough ex con who wants to settle down and go straight by working with his brother-in-law's tire company. But alas, the tire plant is infected by a wave of assaults and killings. The plant's general manager pleads with Raft to find the criminals responsible and perhaps put an end to the bloodshed. Watch for Russell Johnson (TV's "the professor" on Gilligan's Island")in an early role.

jim riecken (youroldpaljim) George Raft is Joe Gargan, an ex con who is hired by a tire factory owner and a union leader to help smash a loan sharking mob that has been preying on factory workers. Joe works his way into the loan sharkers operation in order to get the goods on the guy who killed his brother in law and find out who the mobs top boss is. Since Joe can't tell anyone what he is up to, this puts a strain on his personal life; his sister no longer wants anything to do with him and he gets dumped by his girlfriend. Of course Joe clears everything up at the end.Although LOAN SHARK has a somewhat weak script, the film is a fast paced, well acted, and efficient gangster thriller. Dorthy Hart, who played Jane to Lex Barkers Tarzan the same year as this film, looks lovely. Overall, LOAN SHARK is recommend for fans of George Raft and post war gangster movies.