simonqbb

Five men pull off a daring, meticulously-planned nighttime train robbery in a rainy, remote part of Utah, and then proceed to attempt their escape via three trucks headed the 900 miles to Los Angeles and an ocean getaway. (Think it'll work?) This is a tight, suspenseful little B heist movie, replete with excellent direction, good performances, and fun details (look out, it's the L. A. smog police!), and even if you might guess that the criminals' best-laid plans won't go entirely as, well, planned, this is still a lot of fun. I especially liked the final act, in which our gang melts down some of the stolen U. S. Mint gold and... well, no spoilers here, but it was a pretty great idea - and the climax in the L. A. environs is pretty unforgettable as well. This would make a great double bill with Armored Car Robbery (1950), another superior B heist movie I watched earlier this year, or perhaps any of the other notable A-list heist movies of the era (The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing, Rififi, etc). I loved it.

Pretty good little movie set in California's famous Folsom Prison, this is both a hard-hitting prison drama and a "message movie" advocating for prison reform. Character actor Neville Brand leads the charge among the prisoners, who also include the intimidating Leo Gordon and the more level-headed Robert Osterloh. I appreciated the fact that the prison warden (nicely played by Emile Meyer) was not written as a baddie; on the contrary, he's shown as advocating himself for some of the reforms that the prisoners take up. Well-done overall, with an almost documentary style that suits the drama which unfolds.

Interesting if decidedly uneven low-budget late-period almost-noir follows a young, handsome, dapper hit man who is sent to Los Angeles to take out a high-profile trial witness. I thought Vince Edwards was pretty great in the lead role, and a couple of minor roles really stood out, especially Caprice Toriel as Edwards's target and Kathie Brown in a brief but fantastic scene as an escort. However, I didn't care much for the characters/actors playing Edwards's L. A. contacts: the rather goofy humor in the scenes was jarring in relation to the hit man's otherwise serious mission, and the actor Phillip Pine seemed to be virtually channeling Jack Lemmon's acting style. (To be fair, I don't know if Lemmon might have picked up on Pine at some point, or if the similarity was merely a coincidence.) I also didn't think the acoustic guitar soundtrack worked, though it's definitely one of the unique features of the film. Overall, a little bit of a tidy mess, and mostly/still recommended for noir junkies.