Time Table

Gang executes intricate train robbery, putting two insurance investigators on their trail, with a major twist.

At about the time Kubrick was making a reputation with his heist film The Killing (1956), Mark Stevens put together this little gem. Unlike Kubrick's classic, this caper film doesn't rise to semi-artistic heights, but it is tight, tough, and well-acted, with some nice touches. For example, there're the surly baggage handler and the brusque airplane mechanic, both colorful bits that could have easily remained routine.

Aben Kandel's script is carefully plotted, dribbling out pieces of information that keep us glued to developments-- plus that great opening hook with its careful staging. But what I especially like is his and Stevens' attention to jilted wife Ruth (Stewart). It would have been so easy to shove this plain-faced woman aside as Stevens cavorts with the lovely Linda (Farr). Instead they play up her heartbreak as this drably devoted wife watches the collapse of everything she holds dear. In my book, it's a sensitive dimension that helps lift this 80- minutes beyond the simply well-crafted.

In addition to Stewart's fine performance is King Calder's (Armstong). His humorless, Bassett hound face is perfect for the dogged investigator who knows the importance of visualizing and goes where the evidence takes him, regardless. Look too for Jack Klugman (Frankie) in one of his earliest film roles.

Judging from Stevens' list of credits (IMDB), he's one of those contract players trying his best after the break up of the old studio system and the decline of the B-movie. Whatever his later misfortunes (Gunsight Ridge {1957}; Gun Fever {1958})-- he and Kandel team up to score solidly with this overlooked little caper gem.

You would think that by 1956 nobody could breathe new life into a train robbery tale. But in this film there are two major surprising twists, one near the beginning and then one smack in the middle.

Because half a million was taken in the robbery, a crack insurance investigator has his vacation to Mexico postponed to solve this crime. He is paired up with a bulldog of a railroad detective. Very shortly the pair determine that this crime was meticulously planned. But because it is obvious the crooks were working by a "time table" (thus the title), the railroad investigator says that is their weak link. Find a place where they couldn't make their time table, and the case should be something that can be cracked.

This is somewhat like a film noir and somewhat like a crime drama - a bit half and half. The interesting theme here is that of a normal middle class person turning to crime not because of one small bad decision snowballing or some life event causing a desperate need for money beyond their means, but because of living a life of "quiet desperation". Maybe this film is not remembered so much because that theme has become quite common in the decades that have passed. But in the "I Like Ike" 1950s, the idea of somebody not being happy with a chicken in their pot and their suburban tract home was almost blasphemy.

I'd highly recommend it. I haven't given too many details because to say much at all would spoil it for you.

A funny coincidence - Actor Raymond Bailey as the insurance company executive, calmly stating that if the crime cannot be solved and the loot recovered, then the company may have to pay out half a million. Bailey played skinflint banker Milburn Drysdale during the 1960s in the Beverly Hillbillies, and THAT character would have had a heart attack over losing such a sum!

The film gets off to a really good start. A slick crime with no clues appearing and you're wondering how the investigators are going to solve it. I'm thinking this is great (8 or 9 out of 10); a real puzzle but out of the blue they catch a member of the gang with no explanation as to how they found him. Then other members of the gang start making mistakes by not following orders. If the crime had been solved by deduction it could have been a great movie. Gripping start but soon disappoints.

This is a fast paced crime thriller involving a well synchronized heist of $500,000 from a train. Insurance investigator Charlie Norman (Stevens) and railroad detective Joe Armstrong (Calder) are called in to investigate the crime. The gang of thieves seem to have thought of everything and covered their tracks well. But then things start to unravel and the gang's leader kills one of gang members who is on the verge of telling all to the police. Armstrong is a dogged detective who pays attention to the smallest detail and whose motto is "There's no such thing as a perfect crime." That's certainly so in this case. Stevens does an okay job as Charlie Norman but he doesn't have a particularly striking screen presence and often delivers his lines too flatly. Even so, this movie has a couple of great twists and maintains interest throughout

It's remarkable how many actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood began or ended their careers making crime pictures ( or horror movies). Mark Stevens is a case in point. He began promisingly enough with the stylish noir The Dark Corner in 1946 and basically ended it with Timetable ten years later. Was he a classic Marlowesque private eye in the first one, in Timetable the rigors of maintaining a Hollywood career have visibly and morally taken their toll. Directed by Stevens himself, all the glamour of the classic noir is drained from both the look of the film as from the protagonists. Stevens has the look of a man who has seen too much and has basically given up hope that his life will change for the better. Even his last desperate attempt to turn his life around seems doomed from the start. Which is not helped by the strict moral code of the day that is constantly underlined, namely that Crime Doesn't Pay. The plot is a little convoluted, but then that's not what we watch these movies for. Stylistically it has little going for it,and small effort was made to avoid a stage-bound look. But the performances are adequate enough and especially Stevens is totally convincing as the world-weary protagonist. For noir fans this one is certainly worth a look.