Time Table (1956)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Fantastic!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Budget Restraints might Hold Back this B-Movie, Independently Produced, Directed, and Starring Mark Stevens, it Nevertheless makes its "Mark" as an Interesting Cheapie.With a Good Script and Pithy Noir Dialog..."For me patience is poison.", this Little Movie, now in the "Public Domain", has been virtually Forgotten, although it is Shown on TCM but is need of Restoration if possible. It is too Good to be Lost in the Ether.The aforementioned Budget Restrictions do Draw Attention at times with a number of Scenes Staged in Small Rooms with the Camera Stationary. However, Director Stevens does the Best He Can with Dutch Angles and Artsy Camera Placements. He even seems to Know that it doesn't Hurt to amp up the Style with some Striking Shadows on the Wall.The "Perfect Crime" Thread throughout the proceedings is a Cliché that is Hammered Home a bit too much (even with a poster shout out), it is given a Blackboard and Eraser (a fitting low budget tool) that Fills the Frame at times, to illustrate the Investigator's Chops, learned We are told , from His Father.Family, the Nuclear Family, is at the Center of Motivation here and it is most Relevant, because by this Time, 1956, the Eisenhower Eras American Dream and White Picket Fence Mentality had become a Reality for the Film-Noir Discontents. War Veterans who Found Themselves uncomfortably roped like Wild Animals plucked from the Battlefields and placed on Display in Suburbia for all to Rubberneck. The House Indeed became a Prison and the Job a Trap. The White Picket Fence was the Clanking of a Cage Door. The Nightmares Begin for those on Display in Film-Noir.

This seems relatively well regarded amongst my peers on the IMDb . TIME TABLE gets off to a relatively good start involving a heist on a train . It's not spectacular but is somewhat intelligent . Alas however you realise the reason it isn't spectacular isn't down to the film relying on smart scripting but something more pragmatic - it lacks a budget and this becomes infuriating . The camera constantly stays locked the actors on small sets that probably indicates it was shot on location , ie a scene is set in a motel and it looks like a motel interior too but it doesn't strike you as cinema verite but more like very cheap B movie cinema . This is reflected in scene following tedious scene without any incident except for the cops interviewing suspect after suspect . In order to bring any excitement to the proceedings the director Mark Stevens - who also stars in the lead role - has the most annoying and intrusive musical score drown everything out . There is a fairly exciting climax at the end but by this time I was probably beyond caring

Mark Stevens, who also directed, is Charlie Norman, an insurance investigator. He seems to be a casual guy, chummy with his boss, married to a dull but loyal woman, leading a customary suburban life. We see him called in a case involving the robbery of half a million dollars from a train. The photography is flat, the dialog routine.About a third of the way through, he's in the kitchen with his wife, and during a perfectly uninteresting conversational exchange, he slams the table and vomits a torrent of complaints. Charlie may not be what he seems.And in fact he's NOT what he seems. He's the brains behind half dozen mob members who pulled off the train robbery. He's no longer in love with his wife but with the beautiful Felicia Farr, who is married to one of the gang members. He plans to run off to Mexico City with Farr, except that the plan -- the timetable -- is upset by the fact that he's been assigned by the insurance company to his own case by his friendly boss, King Calder.Things go awry. The center does not hold. The plan unravels bit by bit, as it always does in these crime movies, and Charlie winds up killing another gang member, then a slime ball in Tijuana. He gets what's coming to him, and as he's dying in his boss's arms, like Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity," he gets to utter a last line -- "I guess this wasn't in the timetable either." As a director, Steven is okay. The most memorable thing about the film is the switch from flat, high-key lighting in the first third, to the murky shadows and blinking neons of the rest. It's professional, no more than that.None of the performances stand out much. Stevens has done better elsewhere ("Street With No Name," "Jack Slade"). He doesn't challenge himself here. Nobody else has too much to do. King Calder is an ordinary but reliable actor. Wesley Addy is a doctor gone bad, and he seems to fit the role with his distingué demeanor and appearance -- and those wide and unprincipled lips bespeaking weakness. At about this time, Addy also played a murderous thug in another movie -- the name of which I forget -- and he was totally unsuited for the role. Wesley Addy is a bad doctor, not a thug. Check him out as the bad doctor in "The Verdict." The structure is pretty formulaic. Gang members are at odds with one another after a caper. And the depth of character of, say, "The Asphalt Jungle" is simply absent.Don't expect much and you might enjoy it more.

This film, starring and directed by Mark Stevens, has more twists and turns than the streets of San Francisco. Stevens plays a seemingly by-the-book insurance investigator called in on a train robbery caper which appears to be the perfect crime. But all is not as it seems and the true character of Stevens is revealed. He is the man, obsessed with sticking to the timetable, who has planned the robbery and now is on his own trail. (This is reminiscent of "The Big Clock" where Ray Milland was put in a similar situation of being the hunter and the hunted). He is romantically involved with one of the perpetrators, played by Felicia Farr, and must avoid detection by misdirecting his partner from the truth and the clues that keep popping up all over the place.The chase leads to Mexico, leaving a trail of bodies, and the game is up. Farr gets killed, Steven's oblivious wife finds him out, and Stevens attempts to escape, forcing his partner to shoot him down.This film packs quite a punch in the short running time of a little over an hour. The plot is complicated but believable and all the players do a good job of making this a stand-out in the realm of the lower budget B film genre.