Criss Cross

source: Criss Cross

Like many viewers I was initially disappointed by Criss Cross. Some have claimed it to be a poor imitation of Lancaster's debut in "The Killers" but after repeated screenings I find that my appreciation increases with each viewing. The rather direct flashback plotting, the excellent supporting work of Dan Duryea and the whole stable of Universal bit players contribute to a delightful film noir experience. It does lack the irony and richness of story of "The Killers" and can't compare to "Out Of The Past" but the dynamic between Lancaster and DeCarlo ranks as some of the best interplay in the genre, even if a bit one dimensional. If you are new to the genre, Criss Cross is not a first choice. But as you work your way through the cycle this film represents one of the high points of the studio systems addressing this film-making trend with non of the drawbacks often associated with "B" films.

Burt Lancaster in this film reminds me of the Billy Joel song "Stiletto": "But you stand there pleadin'/With your insides bleedin'/'Cause deep down you want some more..." Like a lot of noir protagonists, he deserves it. My problem with "Criss Cross" is I never cared. Is Steve just a sap, or is he a jerk? A lot depends on what is in the heart of the center of his affections, his ex-wife Anna (Yvonne De Carlo). When Steve returns to the old neighborhood after a long absence, Anna draws herself to him, then pulls away and marries a local crime boss just as Steve begins to respond. Then she reaches out to Steve again. If only they had money to get away. Did I mention Steve works as an armored-car guard, delivering bags of money? De Carlo was a beautiful actress who didn't get the right parts, and that includes this. Is Anna genuinely conflicted, or just a tramp? Daniel Fuchs' script shortcuts the need for character depth by writing Anna both ways, and not expecting us to notice. The convenience of Steve's job also grates, as well as the film's flashback-dependent structure and logic-defying conclusion. I understand why others regard this film more highly than me. Lancaster is a classic film star who looks marvelous here. Director Robert Siodmak, who collaborated so well with Lancaster in the earlier noir "The Killers", employs interesting angles and textures to communicate a visual freshness unusual for early postwar cinema. Dan Duryea is a sleek and sturdy villain with a refreshingly snide sense of humor. Three sequences are standouts. One, taking place in a hospital, dramatizes the adage: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Another involves planning a big heist, with Anna and Steve's smoldering relationship as subtext and suspense point. "You're going to need a cover story" Duryea's Slim Dundee is told, and thus distracted from watching his wife and her ex-husband a moment longer than he should. Finally, the heist itself is well shot, a boldly paced shootout with layers of tear gas substituting for the fog you get in other noir films. But "Criss Cross" is not at its heart a heist film but a love-gone-wrong film, and that's what goes wrong here. Okay, Steve's a lunkhead, and his core issue: "He's divorced, but he's still got her in his bones" is one a lot of guys can identify with, but other than looking great together, Lancaster and De Carlo give us no reason to see what Steve sees, why he betrays family and friends. If De Carlo had more ambiguity to play with, that might have been effective, but here it's just that she's one person one moment, another the next. Too often we idle around Steve's mother's house or a bar where Steve is pestered by a well-meaning cop friend, who's got it all figured out but can't seem to do a thing to protect Steve. Expositional dialogue runs amuck, which shouldn't happen in a movie loaded with flashback. The crooks even discuss their heist plans loudly in an alley behind the bar where they could be overheard by anyone, just to fill us in. Siodmak has an eye for real-life detail a lot of people respond to, but this time, unlike "The Killers", he only has half a story and a psychosis to work with. "Criss Cross" has a classic noir title but it's almost too apt here.

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.

This is an attempt at noir by Universal and doesn't quite hit the mark, IMO. The first half or so of the film deals mostly with mushy stuff between Burt Lancaster and Yvonne Decarlo, and apparent third wheel, Dan Duryea. It creaks along but then takes off when the caper (an armored car heist) begins. Then there's plenty of action, right up to the nihilistic conclusion. Dan Duryea gives a good performance. Burt is so-so and Yvonne reveals why she never was a major star. Good performances by the minor players. The direction was questionable, as the film slowed to a crawl several times during the seemingly endless first half. Worth watching for Duryea's performance and little else. I give it a C-

Any Burt Lancaster movie is worth two hours of one's life, but in general this Universal picture is a disappointment. Lancaster is Lancastrian, but DeCarlo and Duryea are rather wooden, and they all suffer from a boring plot and the B-picture production values all too common in Universal features of the era. Highlights include the feature film debut of young Tony Curtis, a blink-or-you'll-miss-it cameo by Raymond Burr, a fantastic Miklos Rozsa score, and a nice sinister turn by character actor Percy Helton as the bartender. Movie buffs will remember Helton in the most memorable uncredited role in movie history, namely, "Sweetface" in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

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.

Yvonne DeCarlo sure plays a heck of a femme fatale in this film! And, she's a heck of a lot sexier than when she played Lily Munster! It seems that she was married to a poor sap (Burt Lancaster) but they've since divorced. However, he has it bad for her...and she is beginning to show signs that she might like to marry him all over again. So his hopes raise quickly---only to be dashed when she suddenly runs off with a hood (Dan Duryea--who almost ALWAYS played bad guys). Yet, oddly, despite this, she STILL has her claws in him and is able to manipulate him into being the inside man for an armored car robbery--as he's one of the crew of the truck. Things, however, don't go as you'd expect...see this excellent film to see what happens next. Considering the film has great baddies and a taut script, it's one of the better examples of film noir--true film noir with the perfect dame, great dialog, wonderful camera work--the whole shebang!

While driving an armored car in a lonely road, Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) recalls his life, after divorcing his beloved wife Anna (Yvonne De Carlo) and working in many places in the United States of America, from the moment he returned home in Los Angeles a few days ago. Although traveling for almost two years trying to forget Anna, he is still obsessed with her. However, when he arrives in town, the sentimentally inconstant Anna gets married with the gangster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). Steve plans a heist of the armored car with Slim, expecting to double-cross the criminal and escaping with Anna to another city to begin a new life, but things do not happen as he intended it was. "Criss Cross" is a magnificent film-noir, indeed another masterpiece of master Robert Siodmak. From the initial long scene, with an aerial view of Los Angeles reaching a spot in a parking area where Steve and Anna are having a conversation, to the conclusion of the story, there is no flaw in the script. Burt Lancaster has an outstanding performance in the role of a honest man obsessed with his former wife, who becomes criminal trying to regain the love of his fickle ex-wife. Yvonne De Carlo is also perfect and very beautiful, in the role of a cold and manipulative woman, being a perfect "femme-fatale". The black and white photography with many shadows is awesome in the DVD released in Brazil by the distributor Classicline, and the music score is simply perfect. In 1995, Steven Soderbergh updated this story with the excellent remake "Underneath". My vote is ten. Title (Brazil): "Baixeza" ("Lowness')