A variety of lifestyles crosspaths and are challenged in this somewhat convoluted bank job film made in lavish cinemascope. While some of its storyline fits well into the flow of the film other moments come across hackneyed and forced, the suspense behind the hiest interrupted by torpid melodrama. The script does deserve credit for the way it poses questions of morality as well as depict hypocrisy below the surface of proper and polite society but some of the sub plots distract from the film's major focus and the film lags in places.
A trio of bad actors Harper, Dill and Chapman case a town and plan to knock over the local bank. The normal American town has its scandals however and they are all brought to a head one violent Saturday.
There's an uneasy mix of Sturges and Sirk to be found in Violent Saturday that makes it plod in moments but it has a good look and scenes of jarring violence that will get your attention while the seedy subplots of local denizens flesh out stories that are mostly flab. All the cast ably play their roles with Lee Marvin's usual auteur quirk emphasizing the threat. Director Richard Fleisher does a fine job of creating some tense situations (shades of Gun Crazy) and raising moral issues along the way and while not wholly successful in combining both he maintains a level of suspense to go along with a muscular look that make Violent Saturday a vivid caper film.
A trio of bad actors Harper, Dill and Chapman case a town and plan to knock over the local bank. The normal American town has its scandals however and they are all brought to a head one violent Saturday.
There's an uneasy mix of Sturges and Sirk to be found in Violent Saturday that makes it plod in moments but it has a good look and scenes of jarring violence that will get your attention while the seedy subplots of local denizens flesh out stories that are mostly flab. All the cast ably play their roles with Lee Marvin's usual auteur quirk emphasizing the threat. Director Richard Fleisher does a fine job of creating some tense situations (shades of Gun Crazy) and raising moral issues along the way and while not wholly successful in combining both he maintains a level of suspense to go along with a muscular look that make Violent Saturday a vivid caper film.