Camino del oro

That 10-minute opening is a real grabber. I'm still wondering whether the driving rain was real or not. If so, it must have made filming difficult as heck. The problem with an opening like this is once you've hit the highlight how do you fill the remainder, which could easily pale in comparison.

Still, it's no problem for this little gem. The remaining time amounts to a real nail-biter in getting away with the gold now that the gang has stolen it. Driving big rigs cross-country is cat-and-mouse with the cops the whole way, as details of the plan unfold, and we get acquainted with the gang members.

Raymond's effective as the disciplined mastermind. I think I counted one smile from him the whole time. Then there's the familiar mug of professional loser Cook Jr. who gets a regular guy role for once. And, of course, there's the underrated Wayne Morris as the dependable Commando, just two years away from an untimely passing.

My one gripe is with the tip-offs to the cops. They're flimsy and contrived, especially the police radio in Roly's (Repp) case. Too bad, because the rest of a tight script manages a surprisingly high degree of believability, thanks to screenwriter Steven Ritch who doubles here as race car guy Frankie.

I expect director Cornfield was hoping for a break-through film on the order of the previous year's The Killing (1956), which thrust Stanley Kubrick into the front rank. He doesn't get it, but he does get one heckuva good little heist film, and so do we. And, oh yes, I could have told the gang to stay off the LA freeways at rush hour.

Plunder Road is an object lesson in what can be done with a low-budget and a stripped-down script. The opening moments, at night under a hard rain, are disorienting, swift, and all but silent. A gang of highwaymen has plotted to rob a train of its gold-bullion cargo. Successful, its members split off onto three separate routes to what they hope will be prosperous freedom. The movie follows them dispassionately as they individually reckon with their fates. This is a marvel of action and economy -- one of the most enjoyable offerings from late in the cycle of film noir.

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.

"Plunder Road" is a low budget crime film with a few familiar faces...and many unfamiliar ones. The leading men you might not be too familiar to you, as the once pretty Gene Raymond and Wayne MOrris are a bit older and more rugged in this film--and I actually think this makes them more believable and I liked their work late in their career. Another one of the crooks is Elisha Cook--a very familiar character actor.

The story is pretty familiar because caper movies were VERY popular during that era. A group of masked robbers bump off a shipment of gold on a train and their planning is meticulous. However, true to most caper films, things start to fall apart during the getaway. The gang is split into teams and one by one, things start to happen to the teams.

Overall, a well directed and interesting cheap film noir flick-- worth seeing if you like the genre and quite engaging. Not among the best of its type (such as "Asphalt Jungle", "The Killing", "Rififi" or "Grand Slam")....but still quite nice.

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.