|
"Here's to crime. It pays and pays." A poisoned windfall in a darkened highway, a couple drive to a dinner date and a satchel full of money lands in their backseat, the wife (Lizabeth Scott) promptly takes the wheel. The husband (Arthur Kennedy) sees "a blind alley with a big barred gate at the end," which to her is still better than "a dozen down payments and installments for the rest of our lives." The loot in the Union Station locker, the mink coat under the sink, a hard-edged Hollywood snapshot. The lanky weasel for whom the money was intended (Dan Duryea) invites himself in, not the tenacious sharpie from The Woman in the Window but a wobbly grifter frankly terrified of the ruthless dame he tries to blackmail. ("You're in a tough racket now," he tells her before realizing his desultory schemes can't compete with her full-throttle craving for luxury.) A sharp companion piece to Byron Haskin's own I Walk Alone, the twin traps of domestic mediocrity and noir demimonde. An American Tragedy is amusingly brought to bear on the reversed miniature of pedal boats, the flash from a pistol briefly illuminates the night and the lagoon receives hubby's body. "I think probably some day you will kill me. And I wouldn't want that to happen unless we were good friends." The sister-in-law (Kristine Miller) waits across the hall, mated in suspicion with the wartime colleague (Don DeFore). The man of mystery crashes the Mexican getaway to appropriately reveal himself as "a killjoy," though not before the anti-heroine flashes a smile on the desert road for the benefit of Psycho. "Don't ever change, tiger. I don't think I'd like you with a heart." With Barry Kelley, Denver Pyle, Billy Halop, and June Storey. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |