Last night we found a prison break flick that turned into an Epic Melodrama. "Crashout"(1955), stars William Bendix as the leader of six convicts who survive the mass breakout that's depicted at the beginning of the movie. The inmates start a riot in the prison yard and in the chaos, dozens run for the gates, trying to overwhelm the guards. Only the six make it out alive. Besides Bendix (most famous for playing Babe Ruth), they are the legendary Arthur Kennedy, William Talman (of "The Hitch-Hiker" fame), Gene Evans, Luther Adler, and sci-fi hero Marshall Thompson. After bailing out of The Big House, the gang scramble over the Santa Susana Mountains and down into a cave, where Bendix orders them to spend the next three days. "No one's leavin' till I say so".
After that, they embark on a cross-country journey, first by train, to recover 180 Gees in hidden loot stashed by Bendix following his last bank job. Their unity begins to fray when a young lady (Gloria Talbott), friendly and pretty, sits down next to handsome Marshall Thompson. She strikes up a conversation, and instead of politely giving her the brush off, Thompson chats her up. Bendix is none to happy when he sees this. Though the men are all dressed in stolen suits, their pictures have been in the newspaper. The next thing you know, Thompson joins Gloria on the outside "porch" of their train car. She's already told him she's getting off at the next stop. Now he wants to know what her hometown is like and if she'll take him with her. He wants out of the prison gang and doesn't care about the money. Talbott says yes, but just as they're escaping (after she gets off first), William Talman sees them. Besides being a religious fanatic known as "The Reverend", he's also an expert knife thrower. Talman takes aim and lands a blade in the middle of Thompson's back. Now the gang are five. The train leaves again and the men continue to their destination.
It's that kind of movie, where the jailbirds are eliminated one by one, each one dying at a critical point in their journey in accordance with their karmic destiny. In another town, the remaining gang members pull a stickup and take hostages, including a woman (Beverly Michaels) and her son. In a plot twist that asks you to really suspend disbelief, she ends up falling for Arthur Kennedy after he protects her from Bendix's wrath. You might imagine she's be grateful for his intervention, but suddenly she's ready to shield him from the law. This is where the melodrama comes in. "Crashout", for all it's tough guy conflict, is more about the longings of the more emotionally developed men in the gang (Thompson and Kennedy), to break away from the prison mentality and start life anew. Both crave a straight life with love and family, but William Bendix has a hold on them. It's as much a saga as it is a straight-up crime film, but it's stlll an exciting ride and the acting is what takes it over the top. I give "Crashout" Two Big Thumbs Up and recommend it. The picture is widescreen in addition to being razor sharp. ////
If it is an undiluted nailbiter you're looking for, our second film will be right up your alley. The previous night we were lucky to find another top notch Heist Movie : "Plunder Road"(1957), in which five guys rob a train carrying gold from the U.S. Mint. There's no fooling around here, not even a short preamble like we saw in "A Prize of Arms". From the first frame the job's in progress. The movie opens with a shot of a wavering center divider line. The driver of a semi is having trouble staying in his lane because rain is pouring down in buckets. He's got a passenger with him, a serious looking gent whose thoughts are made audible to the viewer through voiceover. "We're seven minutes late. Now he's driving with a lead foot on the brake". We get the driver's thoughts, too. "I didn't know there was gonna be a rainstorm". Inside the back of the truck are two more men. One of them is Elisha Cook, so you know these guys are hinky. Usually he plays the quintessential Squealer. Sometimes he's even a Chiseler. This time he's playing a demolition expert. Set up in the truck's cargo space is a cable-and-spring apparatus, holding a steel vial in the middle. It's a shock absorber system for an ounce of nitroglycerine, which will be used to blow the lock off a freight car.
Intercut with the truck we see a train rushing down the tracks. It's on a collision course with armed robbery if the men can make up for lost time. There's also a second truck on the highway, following behind the semi. It's a phone company rig with a cherry picker on the back. A fifth man is driving it. As he watches the truck weave and shudder in the rain, his thoughts are audible too : "One bump and we'll all become angels". He's thinking of the nitroglycerin.
This is the high-tension setup for the heist that's about to be pulled. Needless to say, it comes off as planned (or we wouldn't have a movie). The men in this gang also have trouble staying on the same page, but in this case versus "Crashout", it's not because of the lure of going straight but because they're nervous wrecks. Despite all their planning, unexpected circumstances arise. Because they've stolen gold from the U.S. Mint, the Treasury Department is involved. The cops respond like lightning and set up roadblocks at every possible exit. Only Gene Raymond, the serious older man who planned the heist, is able to keep his cool. The guy driving the phone truck slips up at one of these mandatory stops and gives himself away, making it even harder for Raymond and the others to continue to travel unnoticed. If they can make it to Los Angeles, they've got an accomplice waiting. She's Raymond's wife (Jeanne Cooper), who owns a foundry. They plan to melt down the gold and turn it into.........what? I can't tell you that cause it'll spoil the ending. Let's just say that they're going to leave the country, and the gold, in it's new shape, will help them to do just that.
There are a couple of plot points that stuck out for me because they didn't make sense. One is that a third truck is brought in to the scheme at a hideout. It's painted with the logo of a coffee company. The men repackage the gold in boxes also labeled "coffee", but don't stop to consider the excess weight (gold weighs a ton). When they come to a weigh station on the highway, they're of course over the limit. This causes the station official to ask to search their cargo. Because Gene Raymond has previously thought of every contingency, it's hard to believe he'd slip up on something as obvious as the weight of gold, but we can let this go because it makes for a tension filled scene when the truck is being searched. Will they be caught or allowed to travel on with just a ticket? The one other thing that stands out, in my opinion, is what they do with the gold after melting it down. That's the thing I can't reveal, but it seems to me that in it's new context it stands out like a sore thumb. You'd think they would've painted it or done something to make it look less........well, gold. That's another thing you can't believe would slip by Gene Raymond, or any of the remaining heisters, for that matter.
It's not a huge deal, however, when taken with the movie as a whole. Like "Prize of Arms" and all the best heist flicks, the action and the tension never stop. The characters each have their own level of cool (or loss of cool), and the acting is varied accordingly. Some freak out while others maintain their equlibrium, much like the nitro in the spring contraption. I was reminded just a bit of "The Wages of Fear", and while "Plunder Road" is not a masterpiece like that film, it's still worthy of Two Big Thumbs Up, and it must be especially noted that the black and white photography is exceptional. If you like your crime films taken straight with no chaser, just pure 100 proof, don't miss "Plunder Road". It's very highly recommended!
That's all I've got for tonight. Sorry about being a day late (and hopefully not a dollar short). I'm adjusting to being back in my boxlike apartment after spending the past sixteen days at Pearl's. I was really in my Writing Zone there, and I was also working on the book, which has almost sixty pages completed so far. I'll keep at it, though, and get the blog back on track. Losing Pearl has been difficult to say the least, but the writing continues to be magic, like an elixir that keeps me going. I hope you have a nice evening and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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