Violent Saturday (1955), directed by Richard Fleischer.
This is something of a collision of genres and styles. We have an old-style heist noir picture done in lush color with grand CinemaScope 2.55:1 aspect ratio. The crime gets mixed up with that soap opera genre of small town secrets and jealousies and adultery at the country club.
We have a wealth of characters and subplots, too many to jam into the 90 minutes running time:
Bad men Stephen McNally, Lee Marvin and J. Carrol Naish arrive in the desert mining town for a bank job.
Manager Victor Mature has to run the mine because Richard Egan, son of the owner, is a drunken playboy. Mature's sorrow is that is little boy is ashamed of him: Dad had to stay home and work rather than go off and be a war hero.
Nurse Virginia Leith is tough, mostly amused and able to fend off male advances. Her comment to Egan's wife: "Take care of him. I've wanted to own a man like him all my life".
Philandering wife Margaret Hayes worries that she is a nymphomaniac: "I've read about people like me".
Shy bank manager Tommy Noonan is a peeping tom who keeps a revolver in his desk drawer.
Sad-eyed Sylvia Sidney is fallen aristocracy of the small town, reduced to working as a librarian and stealing purses.
Non-violent Amishman Ernest Borgnine's misfortune is that the gang has selected his farm as a hideout.
The heist action is only in the final third and then it does turn violent.
Filmed in Bisbee AZ.
Like Robert Wise, Richard Fleischer is one of those non-auteur directors I find myself seeking out. A sampling of his work:
Noir crime thrillers:
True crime, exploring the psychology of insanity:
Costume epics:
Science fiction:
Swords and sorcery:
Red Sonja (1985)
War and cops:
The thumbnails are from Twilight Time's Blu-ray, a vast improvement over their earlier DVD, which was made from a 4:3 letterboxed master originally intended for a laserdisc that never appeared. Nick Redman and Julie Kirgo provide the commentary track.