Six Bridges to Cross *** (1955, Tony Curtis, George Nader, Julie Adams, Jay C Flippen, Sal Mineo) – Classic Movie Review 6509

The 1955 American film noir crime film Six Bridges to Cross stars Tony Curtis, George Nader and Julie Adams.

Director Joseph Pevney’s slickly produced, compelling, exciting and atmospheric 1955 film version of a Joseph F Dinneen novel called They Stole $2.5m and Got Away with It features a lot of action, plenty of human drama and a sparky climax.

Tony Curtis stars as gangster Jerry Florea in this story of his young life and crooked career as he plots a major crime in this take on the famous Boston Brink’s bank armoured-car robbery – the so-called ‘perfect crime’ or ‘crime of the century’. It is a fictionalised version of the real-life story of the Boston Brink’s robbery in 1950 and of its mastermind, Tony Pino.

The perennially underrated Curtis is excellent as gangster Jerry Florea, and the too-little-respected George Nader is good as the young rookie cop, Ed Gallagher, who shoots Florea fleeing from a crime scene and later befriends him. It is mainly a tale of male friendship.

Sal Mineo’s screen debut, aged 15.

At 16, it is Sal [Salvatore] Mineo’s first film, playing the Curtis character of Florea as a teenager.

Also in the cast are Julie Adams, Jay C Flippen, Jan Merlin, Richard Castle, William Murphy, Kendall Clark, Don Keefer, Harry Bartell, Tito Vuolo, Paul Dubov, Peter Leeds, Kenny Roberts, Anabel Shaw, Charles Victor, Howard Wright, Peter Avarno, Hal Conklin, Carl Frank, Grant Gordon, Joe Gray, Claudia Hall, Elizabeth Kerr, Carey Loftin, Doris Meade, Harold W Miller, John J Muldoon, Kenneth Patterson, Di Di Roberts, Kenny Roberts, Frank E Sawin Jr and James Stone.

The Narrator is Jeff Chandler. He was to play the lead but refused the role and was put on suspension by Universal.

Six Bridges to Cross is directed by Joseph Pevney, runs 96 minutes, is written by Sydney Boehm, shot by William H Daniels, produced by Aaron Rosenberg, scored by Joseph Gershenson, Henry Mancini, Frank Skinner and Herman Stein, and designed by Alexander Golitzen and Robert Clatworthy. Sammy Davis Jr was hired to sing the title track.

Curtis recalled: ‘I was more comfortable in this one. It was shot in Boston where it happened. I had to do a publicity tour to promote it and there was a lot of craziness.’

Clint Eastwood auditioned for the role of Florea as a teen in May 1954 but Pevney rejected him and hired Mineo instead. After many failed auditions, Eastwood landed a minor role from director Jack Arnold in Revenge of the Creature (1955).

There are three more movies about the Brink’s robbery: Blueprint for a Robbery (1961), Brink’s: The Great Robbery (1976) and The Brink’s Job (1978).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6509

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

The Six Bridges to Cross film poster by Reynold Brown.