San Rafelo, Vincent, & the Ice Cream Wagon
Criss Cross (1949)
directed by Richard Siodmak
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
This one begins just right, with Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo embracing in the parking lot of her husband's club. Burt's not the husband. Siodmak - forever, in my mind, the director of Ella Raines in Phantom Lady - courts the tension of that film's train platform rendezvous with a hospital room mirror and a man smoking a cigarette late into the night on a bench in the hall. The voiceover (by Burt) plays down the trademark toothy grin for a soft conscience, and walks the camera - always by foot - from landmark to landmark in LA. Most of the conspiracies and lovers' quarrels transpire on sound stages, but process shots of midnight and morning on the Angels Flight incline outside an old apartment are evocative enough to make talk of Zuma Beach and a bar called the Dragon's Den feel like something to do when the movie's over. An easy lead-in to the women who drink in city bars in The Crimson Kimono and Barfly, although Lancaster is such a star that he crowds out his female counterparts. Mickey Rourke and James Shigeta - each cast against stronger actresses than De Carlo - do a better job sharing the frame.
directed by Richard Siodmak
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
This one begins just right, with Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo embracing in the parking lot of her husband's club. Burt's not the husband. Siodmak - forever, in my mind, the director of Ella Raines in Phantom Lady - courts the tension of that film's train platform rendezvous with a hospital room mirror and a man smoking a cigarette late into the night on a bench in the hall. The voiceover (by Burt) plays down the trademark toothy grin for a soft conscience, and walks the camera - always by foot - from landmark to landmark in LA. Most of the conspiracies and lovers' quarrels transpire on sound stages, but process shots of midnight and morning on the Angels Flight incline outside an old apartment are evocative enough to make talk of Zuma Beach and a bar called the Dragon's Den feel like something to do when the movie's over. An easy lead-in to the women who drink in city bars in The Crimson Kimono and Barfly, although Lancaster is such a star that he crowds out his female counterparts. Mickey Rourke and James Shigeta - each cast against stronger actresses than De Carlo - do a better job sharing the frame.
posted by NPK at 9:35 AM
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