Camino del oro

The most prestigious B crime flick about heists, besides GUNS GIRLS AND GANGSTERS, both of the same period, late fifties, both short, sharp as a knife, with no useless shot, rough, tough gangsters stories, gritty, dark, as I LOVE, for which I would walk through a mine field. What I would not do for today's OCEAN'S ELEVEN like crap, bullsh....material. I regularely watch those films every two or three years, I don't get tired of it. Wayne Morris and Gene Raymond have never been better for my own taste. And Elisha Cook Jr - the ancestor for me of Geoffrey Lewis, I don't know why, - is also terrific, despite a supporting character. No one can get tired of it.

Certainly a lot of atmosphere from the 1950s on display here, and we are on the road plenty. One is definitely drawn into the program, and it is difficult not to be interested in the details of all that is passing by before our eyes on the screen. The expressive faces, which are so strongly captured by the camera, may seem uncomfortably close at times, especially since they aren't faces of what we may call appealing folks. Keep in mind that with no counter-balance from hero figures, it may be easy to fall into rooting for some of these bad guys. A grim, stark, and memorable viewing experience.

$10 million in gold is being shipped by rail to San Francisco from Salt Lake City. Five men are determined to see that the gold doesn't make it. The men successfully pull-off a daring nighttime robbery and snatch the $10 million. Their plan includes loading the gold into three different trucks. At regular intervals, they set off for the coast where they intend to rendezvous and split their loot. Will they make it? (This is a film noir - you know things are bound to go horribly wrong.)

Plunder Road is a nice little low-budget noir/crime/drama film. While I enjoyed every second of the movie, the highlight for me has to be the robbery that takes up at least the first 15 minutes of the film's 72 minute runtime. Similar to Rififi, the robbery is carried out almost entirely in silence. The plan is well thought out and executed. The coordination between the five guys makes for a great watch. Director Hubert Cornfield expertly filmed this section of the movie. He wisely included almost every detail - from the masks to the gassing of the guards to the handling of the explosives. Some of the camera angles Cornfield chose helped to increase the excitement of the whole thing. I also think that filming the heist in pouring rain was a wise decision. The rain added even more suspense and atmosphere. While I'm not overly familiar with most of the cast (Elisha Cook, Jr, being the exception), they all give nice performances. I think I was most impressed with Stafford Repp as Roly Adams, but that may only be because he's familiar to me having played Chief O'Hara on Batman in the 60s. Plunder Road's ending is appropriately bleak. As with most good film noir, none of the characters comes out unscathed.

This is another of those "Poverty Row" film noirs, a crime movie made on a low budget but yet decently acted and certainly entertaining.

Gene Raymond and Elisha Cook Jr. are known actors to classic film buffs but the rest of the cast may not be too familiar. There is no one star in this film anyway but all give good performances, particularly Raymond, the most interesting member of the gang.

The weak link of the film, at least to me, was the ending...but I give it points for originality. Overall, the story was a simple one, but oddly told. I say that because the important things that happened in the film (the arrests of the criminals, for one thing) would be glossed over quickly while minor things would be detailed longer than necessary. Despite that, the film was interesting thanks to good dialog, realism on the part of the characters and the short running time (73 minutes). Hope to see it on DVD some day.

Being primarily a visual medium, one of the things film does best is illustrate the mechanics of complex items. I refer not only to the machinations of the caper plot so well achieved here, but also to big machines themselves -- trains, trucks, assembly lines. Many a great director has used the relentless workings of machines as a metaphor for inescapable fate -- think especially of Fritz Lang and the openings of Human Desire and Clash by Night.

The stars of Plunder Road are the machines themselves -- the overburdened trucks inching their way to freedom, the massive crane and huffing sabotaged train in the rain-pelted robbery scene, the bubbling cauldron at the foundry contributing to the ingenious escape plan, etc. The human characters are sketched briefly, with impressionistic strokes, but it's the mute mechanical accomplices that drive the plot and stick in the mind. This is best illustrated by the cleverly-inserted visit of a smog inspector, and again in the cruelly ironic downfall of the protagonists, who are at the mercy of their guileless vehicles.