1955 drama
Rating: 16/20
Plot: Three cons--a smart mean one, a a thuggish stupid one, and a nice quiet one--escape from prison in none-other than Terre Haute, Indiana. I was born there, but not in the prison. They make their way to Indianapolis/Broad Ripple (I live near there!) and visit the home of the Cleavers soon after Wally's sex-change operation. They weren't invited, but luckily, there's enough chicken in the fridge for everybody. While waiting for a shipment of money from his woman in Pittsburgh (I've never been there!), Griffin and his two cohorts say mean and threatening things and quickly wear out their welcome. Waving guns around will do that. It looks bad for the Cleavers as they struggle with whether action or inaction is the best move. There seems to be no way out. Oh, snap!
Good flick with terrific mounting tension (so many loose ends add to it--the boyfriend, the cops, the girlfriend's traffic violations, the dumb little kid, the conflicts between the criminals, the trash man's arrival) and great acting. Really, even the brat isn't all that bad even though I couldn't get past my initial "Hey! That's Beaver Cleaver!" thoughts. Like a lot of 40's/50's thrillers, you know pretty much what's going to happen, but it's the stuff that goes out of the range of that pretty much that moves this from the pedestrian to the pretty great. Also impressive is the very realistic range of human emotions on display here. There might be moments where the characters are acting like movie heroes, but it's always due to their vulnerability and faults rather than the whims of a Hollywood screenwriter. I like Bogart here, and he gets some good lines. He does hold a gun like an old man though.
This was a Cory recommendation.
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