Rififi in St. Louis

Let me begin by pointing out that IMDb makes a mistake when it lists Nell Roberts as "Woman in Bar Talking to George." The woman in the bar is George's girlfriend Ann, played by Molly McCarthy. Nell Roberts is the Salvation Army woman who appears in three places in the film but who speaks only at the end when she tells a cop, "Don't go in. They're robbing the bank." I speak from authority as the great-nephew of Nell Roberts, my grandmother's sister, who was active in community theater in St. Louis in the 1950s, and who also had a bit role (as an old woman who answers the door) in the film, "Hoodlum Priest" (starring Don Murray), which was also made in St. Louis. We always knew her as "Aunt Nelly," so I guess "Nell" was her stage name.

In any case, "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" is an interesting little movie -- though there really is nothing "great" about it. The noir approach fits the story line perfectly, but the execution strikes me as stiff and amateurish, especially in the acting and the editing. McQueen was doing what he could to be Brando, but Brando he wasn't. The three other members of the gang and the girlfriend have various small strengths as actors to commend them, but they wouldn't have been enough for professional survival today. The plethora of extras and bit players must have saved the producers some dinero, and they do give the film a certain documentary and amateur-theatrical charm, but their performances (including Aunt Nelly's) are of a type to make the viewer uncomfortable in the expectation of an embarrassing gaff. The homosexual subtext (mentioned by other reviewers) is certainly not imaginary. In fact, the things that make this movie most worth watching are, first, that homosexuality is included as a theme at all -- it was not necessary to the film's integrity unless the producers were aiming at some politically incorrect social commentary or had a personal ax to grind -- and, second, that the gay relationships had to be coded to make the finished work acceptable to the public in the late 1950s.

But I did enjoy the look of the cars and the streets of St. Louis (a la New York in "The Naked City") before the rapid urban disintegration that overtook it shortly afterwards, and from which it has still not recovered. The was the REAL "St. Louis Bank Robbery."

For fans of intelligent heist movies, this is one you should enjoy. Four well-developed characters come together in order to try and knock off a quiet small-town bank. They all have backstories that make the characters' success or failure interesting to the viewer. They take their job seriously and this draws in the viewer and holds our attention.

The acting is not aided by the most interesting writing, and among the actors Crahan Denton deserves the most credit, and the character who doesn't want to go back to prison is also quite good. A young Steve McQueen is astonishingly bland. The script is not particularly imaginative, but the characters are interesting enough and the direction is competent. If you like straight forward heist movies, this is one you'll enjoy.

This 1959 film, co-directed by Charles Guggenheim and John Stix, is for all its weaknesses a most commendable attempt to photograph a standard heist film in semi-documentary style. Shot on the locations in St. Louis where the actual robbery occurred, it almost succeeds. Unlike many earlier crime films in this genre, the screenplay by Richard Heffron makes no attempt to have us sympathize with the professional criminals. Few crime films of the era or before portrayed the common bank robber and his accomplices with such cold reality, going so far as to hint at the homosexual relationships that occur among hardened criminals who spent their lives incarcerated. The major weakness of the film is the time it spends attempting to establish a relationship between McQueen and the sister of one of the bank robbers. Molly McCarthy, physically believable and sympathetic, is not quite up to carrying off her admittedly complex role, particularly in comparison to the brilliance of the then 29-year-old Steve McQueen. McQueen received only $4,000 for his work, but he steals the picture, making the psychology of the young man beyond his depth who gets involved with a gang of professionals and cannot get out thoroughly believable. He is especially effective in the end of the film. The film is also helped by an original minimal score by Bernardo Segall, whose orchestration resembles that of European films of the same time. Guggenheim who had a talent for this sort of film later went on to direct many award-winning documentaries, leaving the crime film behind him. Too bad. He was after something here.

This too little known noir work was filmed five years after the events of which it treats, and employs the settings where it occurred, Southwest Bank and its environs in St. Louis, while carefully utilizing within its cast the actual policemen, bank customers and area residents who were involved in the affair, all of which produce somewhat of a documentary impression. Three ex-convicts are joined by a college expellee, George Fowler (Steve McQueen during his Method period), creating an abruptly formed criminal quartet, with Fowler, assigned as wheel man for his first organized illegal endeavour, and we watch them as the robbery is carefully planned by the group's leader, John Egan (Crahan Denton) amid an assortment of simmering frustrations and jealousies which infest the men. Producer Charles Guggenheim also directs, with assistance from John Stix, and the duo focus upon obtaining a naturalistic setting from the interesting script, which is very intense in feeling, with rather harsh dialogue, resulting in a dark film, at the heart of which is an old fashioned shootout where tactics are forgotten by both sides.

The decent degree of realism plus one of Steve McQueen's earlier starring movie roles help make this crime feature worth watching. The story has some pretty interesting aspects, and it adds to the realism with the well-publicized inclusion of many of the actual police officers who were involved in the original events on which the movie is based. On the other hand, the rest of the cast does not come up to McQueen's stature as performers, and at times some potentially powerful scenes lack a little something as a result.

The setup has McQueen's character hired as the getaway driver for a gang of bank robbers. Their careful planning is thrown into complications by an old girlfriend of George's (McQueen), whose brother is also part of the gang. The resulting tensions, plus the various unexpected developments as they carry out their plan, add some interest to the basic story. Many of the scenes are written and filmed rather well, although at times the movie expends some screen time on less interesting material.

McQueen does a good job with an unsympathetic character, and the supporting cast is mostly solid. Molly McCarthy is believable and generally sympathetic as Ann, but she does not always give her character a lot of depth. Crahan Denton gives the gang's boss a good, solid persona at the beginning, but afterward the character remains rather one-dimensional even when there are chances to bring out some interesting characteristics.

The straightforward, almost documentary style cinematography works pretty well, and makes a good combination with the downbeat story. Despite a few things that could have been better, this is not bad at all for its genre, and it is certainly worth seeing.