Phil Karlson’s 99 River Street is, along with Kansas City Confidential, an exemplar of the director’s brutal, cynical, economical approach to noir. We first meet boxer Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) in the middle of a heavyweight title fight, in which his potential victory is hijacked by a knockdown that leaves him bleeding from a huge cut above his eye. Only then is it slyly revealed that the fight is a replay on TV, which Driscoll has been poring over, as if trying to grasp the opportunity that escaped him four years earlier, while his bitter, disapproving wife, Pauline (Peggy Castle), snaps at him to finish his dinner.

It’s clear that Ernie hasn’t recovered from that career-ending knockout, but he still figures on getting himself a gas station one day, or maybe he’ll knock Pauline up, using a box of chocolates as bait—advice from his former...