I just watched the movie
Violent Saturday, and I don't exactly know where to post about it. So I'll post here.
I really liked this movie a lot, much much better than
The Narrow Margin which was also directed by Richard Fleischer and which I saw a couple of years ago as my very first noir (at least the first film I KNEW was a noir and watched on purpose for that very fact).
One of the great pleasures of
Violent Saturday is the way it's laid out, slowly, methodically, like cards being set out for a tarot reading. We meet each person - a genial traveling businessman, his older friend, and finally their buddy, who has a little nasal allergy problem, as they are coming into town. They are a likable bunch, who even stop to chat with some Amish folk, but after a few minutes it becomes clear that our heroes are hoodlums who are only there to rob the local bank. Our fellow with the allergies seems to have a terrible addiction to his nose spray, and this is where the movie opens outward, cluing us in on the weaknesses of our cast of characters. The secrets of the townfolk are revealed while our heroes are squatting, waiting for the perfect moment for their heist.
It's a fascinating bunch, here in Bradenville. Every person has their dark side. I just loved this Peyton Place aspect of the movie. The bank manager, Tommy Noonan, has a yen for a young woman (Virginia Leith, with full body this time), and secretly watches her undress at night from below her window. The young woman has a crush on the very married Richard Egan, whose wife is playing around with the golf pro. The librarian (marvelously played by Sylvia Sydney) steals money from handbags sitting unattended, and isn't above a little blackmail when Noonan finds out what she's doing. Our real hero doesn't show up until quite late in the story... he's Victor Mature, playing a mining engineer whose son has gotten into a fight because his best friend told him his dad didn't fight in the war. Mature tries to explain to the boy that it takes all types of people to win a war, not just the soldiers, but we know this is a lame excuse.
Well, anyway, to make a long story short, the heist takes place just as all the separate stories are coming to a head. Mature is nabbed for his car and taken to the Amish farm until the gang can make their getaway. He and the Amish family are bound and left in the hayloft. As the robbery goes down, each one of the townspeople we've met enters the bank. Everything goes wrong of course, but the gang escapes and heads back to the farm where meanwhile, Mature has gotten free. The Amish father must make a decision about whether or not to help, when he knows killing is wrong. Did I mention he's played by Ernie Borgnine? At this point I realized I'd seen the end of this movie before, and liked it. And I still like it....how can you not enjoy a shoot out at the old barn? There's a lot of suspense, considering that we know that Mature will be redeemed in his son's eyes, and that everything will work out for our various townsfolk, sort of.
And this is only Saturday! Heaven help us, there's gonna be a lot of atonement in Bradenville on Sunday.
What I liked about this movie the most was the economy of it. Everything was told just right, no extra lingering over it. Richard Egan gave what I think might be the single best performance I've ever seen him give. I liked everyone in the cast, Including an excellent-as-always Lee Marvin as our nose spray addict, J. Carroll Naish as the older hood, and the sorely underrated Stephen McNally as the brains of the operation. Brad Dexter is the golf pro, Dorothy Patrick is Mature's wife (they have a good if strained relationship thanks to Billy Chapin, the son who can't look up to his old man.) and Margaret Hayes as Mrs. Richard Egan, who manages a change of heart, falling back in love with her rich hubby at the last minute. Even the stuffy old woman whose purse gets stolen did a great job. I feel I should talk again about the wonderful Sylvia Sydney, who deserves a second mention and a second chance as the klepto. God she was good.