Criss Cross (1949)

As Good As It Gets

A Masterpiece!

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

As someone wrote to me the other day and was right on point, it's like cinema was invented for film noir. There's nothing like it, in the darkness being set a certain way, the memoryThis is typical; the zigzag of hopeless love, heist, doublecross, leaving behind just a hollow soul to welcome a few bullets from the dark.What elevates it first is how effectively everything fits. Siodmak may never be celebrated next to Hitchcock, but he was a master craftsman in his niche. Lancaster is just unselfaware enough to fool us—we don't know how much of the intricately naive character he plays is an actor job and how much the actor himself. The girl is pretty and desperate and the villain scummy enough.The heist is ordinary enough for this day, but pretty excellent for then. It bookends the film and inbetween we have the essential matter of noir.Hallucinative throwback to previous life. We're presumed, as usual, to take it at face value as things that happened, but we know better. It's too rich to ignore. Remember, it's all being recalled as he drives to the heist, anxious, unsure. From the heist on, he blacks out twice. The heist itself is rendered with smoke and confusion, mirroring the betrayal. Later he's incapacitated in a hospital bed, fearful of a gunman paying him a visit.This is Chandleresque, and noir in general. The losing of world and coming back to, coming and going. The timeline starts with him returning to LA after years of doing odd jobs around the country, looking for the girl he was married to but didn't work out. It's all something being revisited in the first place. But the greatest thing is how all that is melded into places, memorable, marvelous places around LA. In the drugstore, inviting her to an early morning swim the other day, and her framed in the door with street traffic behind. His looking at her unobserved as she crosses a street to get a cab. The meeting house at the old Bunker Hill, with a windowview of the trains going up and down. Here's a film that's outwardbound, looking out to vibrant life.To the end, we're unsure if the gang was really going to betray him at the heist, if the girl was going to disappear with the money, or if it was all illusion and chaos thrown by the gods.Noir Meter: 3/4

In spite of its big-name cast and fine camera-work, 1948's Criss Cross was somewhat disappointing and a less-than-riveting slice of Film Noir.Set in sunny Los Angeles, Armored Car Driver, Steve Thompson, gets re-acquainted with his less-than-trustworthy ex-wife, Anna, who's recently taken up with Slim Dundee, a notoriously jealous underworld thug.At times this film had the feel of being nothing but a standard "Chick Flick" and it lacked the necessary grit and overall toughness required, in my books, to make it a real, bona-fide Noir gem.Criss Cross starred Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo and Dan Duryea.

Yvonne DeCarlo sure plays a heck of a femme fatale in this film! And, she's a heck of a lot sexier than when she played Lily Munster! It seems that she was married to a poor sap (Burt Lancaster) but they've since divorced. However, he has it bad for her...and she is beginning to show signs that she might like to marry him all over again. So his hopes raise quickly---only to be dashed when she suddenly runs off with a hood (Dan Duryea--who almost ALWAYS played bad guys). Yet, oddly, despite this, she STILL has her claws in him and is able to manipulate him into being the inside man for an armored car robbery--as he's one of the crew of the truck. Things, however, don't go as you'd expect...see this excellent film to see what happens next.Considering the film has great baddies and a taut script, it's one of the better examples of film noir--true film noir with the perfect dame, great dialog, wonderful camera work--the whole shebang!

I had never seen a film from the film noir era prior to this film. I really enjoyed the story line of this film. It was interesting to see the male and female roles reversed. Normally we see the women in distress, and the man coming to her rescue. This film was the complete opposite. Steve, played by Burt Lancaster, was a man blinded by the love he had for his ex wife Anna, played by Yvonne DeCarlo. I enjoyed seeing a woman in charge.By Steve getting back involved with his ex wife, he was dragged into a secret underground world that she was now a part of. She was now involved with a man named Slim, who is nothing but trouble. Slim is involved with L.A.s mafia scene, something in which Steve did not expect to get dragged into.If you enjoy melodramas with some action, then this is a good film for you. I would enjoy to watch it again.