The Long Wait * (1954, Anthony Quinn, Charles Coburn, Gene Evans, Peggie Castle) – Classic Movie Review 13,240

The 1954 crime drama film noir The Long Wait stars Anthony Quinn as a car-smash amnesiac, who is framed for a bank robbery and the DA’s murder.

Johnny McBride (Anthony Quinn): ‘Nobody knows where I come from, not even me.’

Director Victor Saville’s 1954 American crime drama film noir The Long Wait stars Anthony Quinn, Charles Coburn, Gene Evans, and Peggie Castle. It is a rather boring, turgidly handled, offkey film of a Mickey Spillane novel.

It stars Anthony Quinn, who gives an unbalanced turn as Johnny McBride, a car-smash amnesiac, who is framed for a bank robbery and the DA’s murder.

The script is messily complicated rather than complex, and the actors have a hard job fleshing out their stereotyped characters, some of them resorting to over-acting.

It is dialogue heavy, and there is a long wait for the action, which is about as reliable as Quinn’s memory. With its noir themes and style, the film could have been a contender, and there a a few striking hard-boiled scenes, but it never fully sparks up. However, the black and white noir cinematography by Franz Planer is a big plus.

The cast are Anthony Quinn as Johnny McBride, Charles Coburn as Gardiner, Gene Evans as Servo, Peggie Castle as Venus, Mary Ellen Kay as Wendy Miller, Shirley Patterson as Carol Shay, Dolores Donlon as Troy Avalon, Barry Kelley as Tucker, James Millican as Police Captain Lindsey, Bruno VeSota as Eddie Packman, Jay Adler as bellhop Joe, John Damler as Alan Logan, Frank Marlowe as Pop Henderson, Archie Twitchell, Brick Sullivan, Bert Stevens, Michael Ross, Tom Monroe, Joe Kirk, Kenner G Kemp, Stuart Holmes, Sam Harris, Roy Glenn, Bess Flowers, Paul Dubov, Lawrence Dobkin, Sayre Dearing, Edgar Dearing, John Cliff, and Jack Chefe.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,240

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