Mark Stevens, who also directed, is Charlie Norman, an insurance investigator. He seems to be a casual guy, chummy with his boss, married to a dull but loyal woman, leading a customary suburban life. We see him called in a case involving the robbery of half a million dollars from a train. The photography is flat, the dialog routine.
About a third of the way through, he's in the kitchen with his wife, and during a perfectly uninteresting conversational exchange, he slams the table and vomits a torrent of complaints. Charlie may not be what he seems.
And in fact he's NOT what he seems. He's the brains behind half dozen mob members who pulled off the train robbery. He's no longer in love with his wife but with the beautiful Felicia Farr, who is married to one of the gang members. He plans to run off to Mexico City with Farr, except that the plan -- the timetable -- is upset by the fact that he's been assigned by the insurance company to his own case by his friendly boss, King Calder.
Things go awry. The center does not hold. The plan unravels bit by bit, as it always does in these crime movies, and Charlie winds up killing another gang member, then a slime ball in Tijuana. He gets what's coming to him, and as he's dying in his boss's arms, like Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity," he gets to utter a last line -- "I guess this wasn't in the timetable either." As a director, Steven is okay. The most memorable thing about the film is the switch from flat, high-key lighting in the first third, to the murky shadows and blinking neons of the rest. It's professional, no more than that.
None of the performances stand out much. Stevens has done better elsewhere ("Street With No Name," "Jack Slade"). He doesn't challenge himself here. Nobody else has too much to do. King Calder is an ordinary but reliable actor. Wesley Addy is a doctor gone bad, and he seems to fit the role with his distingué demeanor and appearance -- and those wide and unprincipled lips bespeaking weakness. At about this time, Addy also played a murderous thug in another movie -- the name of which I forget -- and he was totally unsuited for the role. Wesley Addy is a bad doctor, not a thug. Check him out as the bad doctor in "The Verdict." The structure is pretty formulaic. Gang members are at odds with one another after a caper. And the depth of character of, say, "The Asphalt Jungle" is simply absent.
Don't expect much and you might enjoy it more.
About a third of the way through, he's in the kitchen with his wife, and during a perfectly uninteresting conversational exchange, he slams the table and vomits a torrent of complaints. Charlie may not be what he seems.
And in fact he's NOT what he seems. He's the brains behind half dozen mob members who pulled off the train robbery. He's no longer in love with his wife but with the beautiful Felicia Farr, who is married to one of the gang members. He plans to run off to Mexico City with Farr, except that the plan -- the timetable -- is upset by the fact that he's been assigned by the insurance company to his own case by his friendly boss, King Calder.
Things go awry. The center does not hold. The plan unravels bit by bit, as it always does in these crime movies, and Charlie winds up killing another gang member, then a slime ball in Tijuana. He gets what's coming to him, and as he's dying in his boss's arms, like Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity," he gets to utter a last line -- "I guess this wasn't in the timetable either." As a director, Steven is okay. The most memorable thing about the film is the switch from flat, high-key lighting in the first third, to the murky shadows and blinking neons of the rest. It's professional, no more than that.
None of the performances stand out much. Stevens has done better elsewhere ("Street With No Name," "Jack Slade"). He doesn't challenge himself here. Nobody else has too much to do. King Calder is an ordinary but reliable actor. Wesley Addy is a doctor gone bad, and he seems to fit the role with his distingué demeanor and appearance -- and those wide and unprincipled lips bespeaking weakness. At about this time, Addy also played a murderous thug in another movie -- the name of which I forget -- and he was totally unsuited for the role. Wesley Addy is a bad doctor, not a thug. Check him out as the bad doctor in "The Verdict." The structure is pretty formulaic. Gang members are at odds with one another after a caper. And the depth of character of, say, "The Asphalt Jungle" is simply absent.
Don't expect much and you might enjoy it more.