(Flynn switched guns anticipating that he was potentially being set up) After following one blind alley involving a federal agent—the man he knows as Tom Clancy—Damico is given a tip by the bartender Smoothie, who offers to drive Damico to meet the elusive Blackie.

For three months after the initial distribution of The Mob in late September 1951, Broderick Crawford conducted an extensive 60-city tour across the United States to promote the production for Columbia Pictures.

[5][6] He made personal appearances at screenings of the film at various locations in New York; in Hartford, Connecticut; Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Cleveland; St. Louis; Memphis; and in other cities in the Midwest and on the West Coast.

[7] In its December 12 issue, for example, the trade weekly Exhibitor provides some details about the film star's visit to Portland, Maine:On a whirlwind tour, Broderick Crawford packed in a full day arranged by Nat Silve, manager [of the] Strand [Theatre].

[10][11] The Mob ranked 122nd among American films that earned at least $1,000,000 in box office receipts in 1951, a time when the average cost of a movie ticket in the United States was only 47 cents and the population of the country was significantly smaller than today.

[13] With regard to entire revenue totals for The Mob, various news outlets credited Crawford's publicity work with boosting the film's receipts, while the actor himself drew special attention to theater owners for their effective use of television to promote the picture.

Academy Award-winner Broderick Crawford, who reports outstanding results from his three-month, 60-city tour in connection with "The Mob," credited the nation's theatre-owners with being "miles ahead of Hollywood in their thinking and action on the use of television as a tremendous selling aid for motion pictures."

Edwin Schallert, the film critic that year for the Los Angeles Times, commends the crime story for its blend of melodrama and humor, and he draws special attention to the lead performance.

[14] "The presence of Crawford in this picture", writes Schallert in his October 27 appraisal, "is its main asset", adding that the actor conducts "his role with robust ingenuity and plenty of emphasis on its amusing trimmings.

A bald melodrama, it makes no attempt to be pretty, and its violence is as exciting and as fast paced as you could ask for....But even with a stereotyped tale, the cast and the director managed to come out head and shoulders above any other crime films around town.

[17] After highlighting and complimenting Crawford's performance in her column, Adams turns her attention to the star's supporting cast: "Maybe there is no message to 'The Mob' but it is a first rate melodrama, handsomely and excitingly enacted by a group of lesser known but very efficient players.

The New York-based review service Harrison's Reports characterizes the feature in its September 15 preview as "a very good crime melodrama" that showcases "novel and realistic" action, which in the publication's estimation should hold theater audiences "in tense suspense all the way through.

[20] The semimonthly trade periodical, which had a targeted readership of predominantly theater owners or "exhibitors", does find some fault with the plot's lack of clarity, namely that it does not establish for moviegoers the crime boss's ultimate goals.

[20] Nevertheless, Film Bulletin states that Columbia's crime story "will please the dyed in the wool action fans with its rugged narrative of skullduggery along the waterfront, terse dialogue and the frank brutality of the several physical encounters.

"[20] Photoplay, the leading movie fan magazine in the United States in 1951, also recommends the film in its October issue, citing most notably the drama's sustained levels of suspense and action.

[21] Describing the feature as "gutsy and fisticuffy", Photoplay informs its readers, "Suspense rides throughout the action-packed story and the scientific methods of police in action should prove frightfully discouraging to the on-the-lam set everywhere.