Criss Cross

Wow! Criss Cross was a blind purchase for me. I really had never read much about it until I decided to give it a try. While I was hoping to be entertained, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it this much. Burt Lancaster has never been a favorite of mine. In fact, other than The Killers, I can't think of another role of his that I've so completely enjoyed. He's wonderful in this movie. As for Yvonne De Carlo, the only other thing I remember seeing her in was the television show "The Munsters". And, while she may not be the greatest actress of all time, she's very good here. I never pictured Lily looking like this. As for Dan Duryea, he's a great baddie. Mannerisms, speech, and the rest of the package just ooze with sleaze. Together, and with the help of an excellent supporting cast, they're great.

As for the movie, it's a very entertaining noir with plenty of twists and turns along the way. Lancaster is the kind of man who drinks too much, De Carlo is the kind of woman who uses men to get what she wants, and Duryea is the kind of man who would as soon shoot you as look at you. It's gritty, sometimes violent, and always entertaining. The film is expertly directed by Robert Siodmak, whose work I've always enjoyed. The script is exceptional with more double-crosses in the final half than one movie has a right to. No one is above double-crossing anyone else. It makes for a very entertaining hour and a half. The movie also features a nice look at Los Angeles in the 40s. The scenes of middle-class, single-family neighborhoods are quite different from the city of today.

While Criss Cross may not be the best film noir I've seen, I would place it somewhere on a list of my ten favorite noirs. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to fans of the genre.

Sure, you've seen it all before: the snarling villain (Dan Duryea), the black widow babe (Yvonne DeCarlo), and the hapless fall guy who just can't help himself (Burt Lancaster). But this is vintage noir from the golden age, done with real style and conviction. What stays with me are those scenes that have since worked their way into the textbook. There's the nightclub scene, where Lancaster gazes longingly at lost love DeCarlo, while she sambas with new honey boy Tony Curtis. Meanwhile there's this pulsating Latin beat that keeps going and going and everybody's shaking it except poor Lancaster. You feel the doom in the air and know this has to end badly. Then there's that nervous scene in the hospital where Lancaster's all laid up. But who's this new guy. He looks like Joe Average, but is he.

Director Siodmak really knows how to shift gears and make these quiet moments creepy. Everybody's been waiting for the robbery, but it seems like a cloudy dream, the kind you only half remember and wish you could forget. Ghostly figures drift in and out of focus, yet which one's Lancaster and who's got the money. Hollywood's fog machines were really working overtime on this one. Of course, it all leads up to the final scene, which is about as good as noir gets. The moment of reckoning when everything comes together, this time with a good view of eternity and in the moonlight, no less. The feeling that it all had to happen from the beginning is so thick you can cut it with the proverbial knife.

Sure, the D-cup DeCarlo's not quite up to the acting challenge, and the great Duryea doesn't get enough scenes, but consider the screen time given to two deserving foot soldiers of the golden era. Once you've seen him, you never forget him: that raspy-voiced gnome Percy Helton as the bartender. There's been no one like him before or since, a sly little troll who's escaped from the pages of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Yet I've never seen him give anything less than an A-grade performance that lifted many a B-movie above the forgettable. On the other hand, there's the completely ordinary Robert Osterloh as the mysterious stranger. His face is sort of familiar. Maybe he's the guy who fixes your car or fills your prescription or on a really bad night, shoves a gun in your gut. But like Helton, he too never gave anything less than an expert performance. Too bad his little Hollywood star never glowed, but he sure made a lot of others brighter than they were.

It's all there and in the kind of irreplaceable black and white that Hollywood's been trying to remake in Technicolor for years. So catch up with this original and find out why.

It was only fitting that Robert Siodmak directed Criss Cross, as he had also directed the film's star, Burt Lancaster, in his first film three years earlier, and this one is Burt's farewell to noir and city suits, as he was about to begin his swashbuckling phase, and after that would don military uniforms and cowboy gear.

Criss Cross is basically a "big heist" movie, full of people double crossing one another with alarming frequency, and to such a degree that the story is often hard to follow. Yvonne De Carlo is the love interest, and Dan Duryea is an exceptionally nasty bad guy even for noir. The setting is L.A., and there is much excellent location photography that makes the movie a treat for people who want to see what the city looked like before half of it was bulldozed to make way for the highways.

There's nothing startling or especially new about this movie. It has a fine and somewhat eclectic supporting cast which includes Alan Napier and Richard Long, Steve McNally and Percy Helton. As in The Killers, there's a strong air of fatalism in the movie, more oppressive here, with a darker tone, and a more Germanic, almost Langian feeling of hopelessness.

1940's seedier side of Los Angeles makes a fitting noir background for this highly well made film noir starring BURT LANCASTER as the lovelorn hero foolish enough to go back to his ex-wife (extremely well played by YVONNE DE CARLO) who has taken up with a bunch of hoodlums headed by the sinister DAN DURYEA. True love never does run smooth, especially in this kind of fatalistic melodrama in which we have a hint from the very beginning of a dark conclusion.

The fact that Lancaster works for an armored car service is worked into the plot and makes for the movie's most suspenseful and action-filled moments. Some nice support from Stephen McNally as Lancaster's wise friend and Richard Long as his brother. Percy Felton does a standout job as an inquisitive bartender.

Robert Siodmak squeezes every bit of suspense as the story builds to a gripping climax. The hospital scene is extremely effective as Lancaster becomes aware of the dangerous situation he's in.

Lancaster displays some vulnerability and sensitivity despite his rugged good looks and has one of his best early roles here, even more impressive than he was in THE KILLERS. Miklos Rozsa's superb background score gives a jagged edge to the suspense.

Any lover of B&W film noir is guaranteed to find pleasure in this one.

Trivia: If you watch real closely, you'll spot the young Tony Curtis as de Carlo's dance partner in the crowded nightclub scene.

Good solid noir, with Burt Lancaster possibly running a little below best but Yvonne DeCarlo as the supreme femme fatale is in stomping form and more than makes up for any lapses from others. Gets going immediately and the aerial shot makes us well aware that this is going to be a beautifully shot movie, which it certainly is. Really great camera movement, especially during a stunning dance sequence, that includes an unaccredited Tony Curtis, and the heist itself with the surprising element designed to catch out Mr Lancaster. Good all the way through and if Lancaster sometimes appears a little lame it is probably because of the sheer ruthlessness of Dan Duryea as the chief baddie and the aforementioned DeCarlo who seems to be able to run rings round them all. Oh and what an ending!