The Burglar

Let's break this film into 3 scenes: the intro and robbery – good. The ending – good. The wordy bit in the middle – awful.

There is a reasonable (not brilliant) story in there and the cast make a good fist of that but the overly emotional scenes which bind the story together just don't work. That the score is overpowering doesn't help.

But this film could have been so much better if it was tightened up. There are some decent jazz rhythms humming away in the background which could have been worked on and the dramatisation I refer to in the middle could also have been better arranged.

On the plus side, the seedy setting suits the film and I appreciate the straightforward action – no need for choreographed martial arts when a few decent punches (carefully played in the background) do the job.

I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this film again but...if you have 90 minutes to kill it is worth persevering with.

I saw this film a long time ago and was tremendously impressed, almost hynotized, by its technique. It was directed by Paul Wendkos, who's since gone on to a successful career in television, but who was for a while considered an up and coming director of movies. The stars, Dan Duryea and Jayne Mansfield, never quite achieved the kind of success many had envisioned for them. Duryea's career was sidetracked by Richard Widmark, and Mansfield never replaced Marilyn Monroe. Part of the charm of this film is watching small timers play small timers in a small movie that didn't cost a lot of money and which few people saw or want to see because no one connected with it is famous (though Jayne has her fans I guess). To make matters worse, the film is arty, full of offbeat camera angles and strange lighting that sometimes makes people look startled, as if they're continually having their picture taken. It's a tawdry tale about little people with big problems, and it works. For all I know it could be a work of art. The story is mostly about a jewel robbery, but it's also about the strange, almost incestuous relationship between Dan and Jayne, which both does and doesn't have a whole lot to do with jewels. There is a very bad guy involved who comes across like a young Senator Joe McCarthy. There are scenes in an amusement park; and more scenes in an empty stadium. I'm not sure why. The films is dazzling and ambitious and pretentious, so much so that it's beyond mere film noir as such; it's more like art noir.

This film has a lot going for it. The opening few minutes are imaginative. Dan Duryea's acting is excellent, good enough to carry him through patches of hokey dialogue. Jayne Mansfield is nice to look at, with a pretty face, and curvaceous in a 50s sort of way before feminine beauty became thin as a rake (But what was the make-up department thinking giving her those outlandish eyebrows?). Never mind that she couldn't act. You have to enjoy the noirish atmosphere, and there are lots of outdoor scenes that catch the eye. The original music, by Sol Kaplan, is superb, or at least it would be on its own; as background it's a little too intrusive and occasionally over the top emotionally. The climax, with a deadly chase in an amusement park is a nice Hitchcock touch. Yet the movie doesn't quite work. It's hard to say exactly why. One big problem is the writing. Both the plot and the dialogue seem to have the same major flaws: at times hokey, at other times seeming to stall, leaving awkward silences or clumsy transitions. I think The Burglar might have been excellent if the studio had given more resources to developing the script, instead of leaving it in the hands of the man who wrote the novel the movie is based on.

Dan Duryea & Jayne Mansfield star in this film noir from 1957. A lengthy jewel heist is at the core of this caper as its pulled off at the film's start w/the remainder of the film having the thieves wait for the hand-off so they can get paid. Mansfield, Duryea's half sister, is sent away while they wait where she meets a guy & carries on a mini romance while Duryea does the same w/a woman, played by Martha Vickers, but what the thieves don't know is that they're being played from both ends leading up to a taut but satisfying conclusion. Made almost w/a European sensibility of action & release (the long waiting period that takes up the bulk of the narrative), this film's plot has a weird time signature to it & it works giving Duryea a good part to sink his teeth into (he usually favors the cackling villain roles) where he's at the end of his rope & suffers for it. Mansfield (mother of Law & Order: SVU's Mariska Hartigay) shows she's more than a pretty face giving nuance & detail to her small but pivotal role.

This is one of those extravagantly stylized late-period noirs, one which palpitates with flamboyant cinematic technique. It belongs in the same club as those other exaggerated, self-consciously arty noirs of the late 50s/early 60s, like Touch of Evil, Kiss Me Deadly, Blast of Silence and Sam Fuller's contemporaneous contributions to the genre. Wendkos directs like a recent A+ film school graduate showing off every Hitchcock and Welles trick he's learned -- there are many stunning edits (he is also credited as the film's editor), several strikingly composed shots, and a suitably seedy background (the fact that the crooks' hideout is right next to a railway line full of speeding streamliners is a boon). At the same time, he toes the studio line of narrative clarity and cohesive action scenes enough to make this suitable viewing for the non-buff (one can see why he spent most of his years in television, but at the same time could dazzle with over-the-top effects in The Mephisto Waltz.) Fans of Atlantic City's Steel Pier are in for a treat in the film's climax (which owes a bit too much to The Lady from Shanghai) -- we even get to see the diving horse. But notably, we also see the soggy marshes that border the city and reflect the protagonists' own situational quagmire. It may not have the integrity of the more subtly devastating noirs of the Siodmak 40s, but it has its own postmodern tradition to uphold. It's worth picking this one up even on the third-generation dupes that are now in circulation; a wide-screen dvd restoration is definitely in order.