La police était au rendez-vous

It's no wonder that teenage girls in the 50s swooned over Tony Curtis. . . His looks, his smile and his charm are captivating. Putting these facts aside, it's a very good film noir, though brightly filmed.

This movie is the fourth film inspired from the famous Brink's facility - depot- in Boston, in the early fifties. It has already been adapted by Jerry Hopper's BLUEPRINT FOR ROBBERY; William Friedkin's BRINK'S JOB; Marvin Chomsky's BRINKS THE GREAT ROBBERY. This one. It is also under the influence of the Warner bros social crime films of the thirties, especially when watching the first part, exploring the youth of some of the opponents. You can think of ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES or any DEAD END KIDS stuff. This Jo Pevney movie is the less focused on the robbery among the three others. Good cop and gentle gangster friendship, with much moral against criminal life style, as in an old Warner Bros film.

Examing some of Tony Curtis's early starring work I've noticed that while seeing him costume dramas and swashbucklers has to be taken with a grain of salt, his work in modern setting films is very good. A really fine example is this film Six Bridges To Cross where Tony plays a young hood who forms a curious symbiotic relationship with a cop that shot him.

The cop is young patrolman George Nader who spots Sal Mineo leaving with his gang of youths from a warehouse robbery. After Mineo refuses to halt Nader shoots and wounds him. The shot went to the source of life and leaves him sterile.

Mineo and later Curtis have a certain charm to the character they play and he holds no grudges against Nader. In fact Nader tries to give Curtis every kind of break he can, but Curtis is an incorrigible criminal who is convinced he's smarter than most of the world.

Later on Curtis pulls a huge payroll robbery based on the Brinks case in Boston and Nader's relationship with Curtis is called into question. Which only resolves Nader to nail him once and for all.

Curtis is perfectly cast in this urban drama, his city diction and manner are suited perfectly for this role. Nader plays the earnest young cop who is caught between trying to give a man he permanently maimed a break and his duty as a police officer. Julia Adams gives good support to Nader as his wife and sympathetic understanding to Curtis.

Though he has a small role Don Keefer has some great moments as a real weasel of a prosecutor trying to make a career for himself by making out that Nader is corrupt. He's someone you'll love to hate.

Six Bridges To Cross is a wonderful urban drama and perfectly suited for Tony Curtis.

This film is a crime drama that traces the strange relationship of a street smart hoodlum (Tony Curtis) with a straight arrow cop over 20 years. The film starts out with Sal Mineo playing adolescent hoodlum Jerry Florea in 1933, robbing street vendors of fruit with his gang and doing some nighttime breaking and entering. It is fleeing after one of these nighttime burglaries when Florea is shot by rookie cop Edward Gallagher (George Nader). Ed thought he shot an adult, and is upset when he realizes he shot a kid, plus due to his wound Jerry will never be able to have kids of his own. Being that this is during the production code era, that is as detailed as the wound description gets. The community is in an uproar over the shooting of a child, juvenile delinquent or not, but Gallagher manages to keep his job. Gallagher's guilt does cause him to strike up a friendship with Jerry that begins as Jerry is recovering in the hospital. Jerry gives Gallagher tips on crimes that help his career, and Ed tries to befriend the boy and point him in the right direction, only to be let down time and again.

Both Curtis and Mineo were great in this. They really do seem to be playing the exact same character at different ages. As adult Jerry Florea, Curtis flashes that charming smile of his and plays the lying sociopath so well that even an audience should have a hard time determining when he is conscientious and when he is not. Florea can be violent when he needs to be, but mainly thieving and its thrill are his game. He doesn't even seem to enjoy the actual fruit of his theft that much.

An interesting piece of trivia - Sammy Davis Jr. sings the film's theme song. It was in route to the recording studio to sing this song that he had the car accident that caused him to lose an eye.

Tight entertaining crime drama about a decades-long relationship between a cop and a criminal, "Six Bridges to Cross" has an engrossing story and a solid cast. While fleeing a petty crime, young Jerry Florea is shot and wounded by Edward Gallagher, a Boston policeman. Florea's injury prevents him from ever having children, and, feeling remorse, Gallagher visits the kid in the hospital, where their bonding begins. However, despite Gallagher's encouragement to reform, Florea continues to mastermind and carry out various crimes, which include one major heist that nets $2.5 million.

The excellent cast features Sal Mineo as the tough young Florea, a smart kid and natural leader of his gang of delinquents. Mineo matures into Tony Curtis as the adult delinquent, who invests in a chain of service stations, while he perseveres in crime despite a string of arrests and incarcerations. Intentionally naive to Florea's false promises and duplicitous nature, George Nader as Gallagher is sturdy as the overly patient, overly loyal cop; having made a moral bargain with himself, Gallagher is willing to turn a blind eye in exchange for Florea's inside information on other criminals. As Gallagher's wife, Julie Adams is equally blind to Florea's true nature and assumes that "settling down" will solve everything, a quaint 1950's concept. However, a tough J.C. Flippen as Concannon, Gallagher's superior, appears more objective. Unfortunately, Curtis maintains a smirk throughout that undercuts any credibility in his character's words and any believability that Gallagher could trust him.

After a needless and insipid Henry Mancini title song mercifully concludes, the fine black-and-white wide-screen cinematography by William H. Daniels opens on the film's Boston street locations, which include the six bridges of the title. Directed by Joseph Pevney, a contract director at Universal Studios, from a screenplay by Sydney Boehm, "Six Bridges to Cross" is an engrossing well-acted crime drama that features a capable cast. The film's flaws slip by, Curtis's charms are apparent, and two hours pleasantly pass.