Criss Cross **** (1949, Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea) – Classic Movie Review 1579

Director Robert Siodmak’s intriguing tangled web of a 1949 thriller stars Burt Lancaster as Steve Thompson, who returns to his home town of Los Angeles and finds his lovely ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne De Carlo) ready to rekindle their old flame. The femme fatale encourages their affair even though she has a new boyfriend in mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea), whom she then soon decides to marry. 

Steve is offered a job as armoured-car truck driver guard with the gangster. But Steve gets into deep trouble and then gets embroiled in a robbery when the hoodlum starts to suspect the affair. Steve and Anna then conspire with a gang to have his own truck robbed en route in a daylight armoured-truck robbery.

Daniel Fuchs provides the fine screenplay for a classic tough and edgy film noir with a gripping climax, based on the novel by Don Tracy. The movie is grippingly and moodily directed by Siodmak.

It is an excellent vehicle for the two mean and moody male stars, who inhabit and command the space to the manner born. De Carlo makes a strong, hard impression too, sharing sizzling screen chemistry with Lancaster. As well as that, it’s an ideal project for the director, who responds to the subject with an inspired noir vision, delivering a highly suspenseful , characterful and atmospheric movie.

Franz Planer’s first-rate black and white noir cinematography, Bernard Herzbrun’s production designs and Miklos Rozsa’s stirring score are major assets. Using the city as one of the characters in the movie, it was shot partly on location in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles.

The producer Mark Hellinger died suddenly of a heart attack on December 21 1947, aged 44, nearly preventing the film going ahead. Later, Lancaster praised writer Fuchs for his success in reworking Hellinger’s idea of a racetrack heist into a fatal romantic triangle.

Criss Cross showcases the film début of the 24-year-old Tony Curtis (billed as James Curtis) as a gigolo dancing with De Carlo in a key scene at the Round-Up Bar.

Once the dance called Jungle Fantasy (performed by Esy Morales) ends, Curtis disappears from the film. Tiny though the role is, Curtis was picked from many young hopefuls auditioning for the director. Curtis was eventually to star with Lancaster in Sweet Smell of Success in 1957.

It is also the (uncredited) film debut of busy character actor Vito Scotti (1918–1996) as the track usher.

Criss Cross is the follow-up for Lancaster and Siodmak to their success in The Killers (1946). Criss Cross was remade as The Underneath by director Steven Soderbergh in 1995, with Peter Gallagher. Fuchs is credited as co-screenwriter with Soderbergh for The Underneath. He won an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story, for the Doris Day-James Cagney Love Me or Leave Me (1955).

http://derekwinnert.com/the-underneath-1995-peter-gallagher-elisabeth-shue-alison-elliott-classic-movie-review-1578/

http://derekwinnert.com/the-killers-1946-burt-lancaster-ava-gardner-classic-film-review-1137/

http://derekwinnert.com/sweet-smell-of-success-classic-film-review-162/

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1579

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/