T-Men

T-Men (1947) is Anthony Mann's hard-edged film noir, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Two U.S. Treasury agents go undercover to crack a counterfeiting ring whose fake bills are nearly flawless. To reach the men at the top, they have to vanish into the underworld and bury their own names.

O'Brien and Genaro work apart, under false identities, with no margin for a slip. One crack in the cover story means a body in an alley. The trail runs from Detroit to Los Angeles — through steam baths, laundries and cheap hotel rooms patrolled by killers like the ice-cold enforcer Charles McGraw plays. The partners can't even let on that they know each other.

Shot by cinematographer John Alton, whose knifing shadows and rain-slick streets became a noir textbook, the film uses a semi-documentary style drawn from real Treasury cases. Cold, lean and merciless. Stream T-Men (1947) online on iFILM.