In the Midwest of the 1920s, in the small-town Missouri bar, Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is portrayed as a traveling salesman-huckster who sells shoeshines and vacuum cleaners." They are advised: "You'd better lay low for a while.The heat's on." [The closest Tom ever comes to saying "You dirty rat" (one of Cagney's fictional famous lines) is "Why, that dirty, no-good, yellow-bellied stool!"] He resolves to seek revenge: "I'm gonna give it to that Putty Nose right in the head the first time I see him.Next came this MGM debut filmJailhouse Rock (1957),followed by director Michael Curtiz'King Creole (1958)in a role as a New Orleans teen rebel (acclaimed as one of his best acting roles, his third and last B/W film and his own favorite) before the decade ended.Blood oozes from the boxer's eye as the countdown reaches nine, but Reeves is "saved by the bell" at the end of the round.