However, it is notable for two things: it is Peter Falk's debut film, and it names names, something most gangster films before and after didn't do, unless the film was set well into the past.
Of course, all the gangsters whose names are given are conveniently dead: Abe Reles, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and Albert Anastasia. A notable omission is Meyer Lansky, who was alive at the time and thus could have sued for libel. But a pretty good overview of organized crime in the 30s and 40s.

Albert Anastasia, by the way, was the real life model for Johnny Friendly, played by Lee J. Cobb, in "On the Waterfront." He was gunned down in a barber's chair while he was getting a haircut in a New York hotel barbershop in 1957.

Peter Falk's almost scarily authentic performance as Reles steals this account of the real-life Murder Inc., which made latter-day gangsters like the characters in Goodfellas seem like choir boys in comparison.