The Burglar (1957)

Sadly Over-hyped

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

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

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Three burglars steal a valuable necklace before encountering the proverbial web of deceit.The movie's a highly uneven work, reminding me as much of Kubrick's The Killing (1956) as the arty flashes of Welles and others. Clearly director Wendkos is reaching for an artistic style, but unlike Kubrick, Wendkos imitates more than he originates. Plus he's working with a ham-handed screenplay that lacks the clarity and flow of Kubrick's classic racetrack caper. Unfortunately, the narrative here tends to stumble along rather than evolve. For example, note the holes in just how the crooked cop puts his operation together, and how he knows as much as he knows. Nonetheless, the opening ten minutes covering the jewel theft is very effective, showing real promise. But the fluidity soon lapses.On a lighter note, I can't help but notice (like another reviewer) Mansfield's unusually bushy eyebrows that undercut her good looks. I'm wondering if they were natural and later pared back by a studio make-over or whether they resulted here from a myopic make-up man. In fact, without all the studio glamorizing of later years, I hardly recognized her.Anyway, for all its shortcomings, the movie remains a generally interesting curiosity that also affirms an unusual moral. Namely, that there can be more honor among thieves than among cops. Something Kubrick also knew.

***SPOILER*** Comes across the screen much like the Orson Wells' 1948 Film Nior classic "The Lady from Shanghai" the film "The Burgler" has to do with a jewel or diamond necklace robbery that goes wrong in the robbers not being able to fence the stolen and expensive merchandise. Having to lay low until he heat's off head burglar Nat Harbin, Dan Duryea, has to placate his two associates Baylock & Dohmer, Peter Capell & Mickey Shaughnessy, in not going off the handle and mess up the entire operation. There's also Nat's half-sister Gladden, Jayne Mansfield, who want's to get out of this criminal racket and spend her time on the beach at Atlantic City and get a nice tan as well as fill her very ample lungs with the fresh and healthy salt water air that's there.What the gang of burglars don't realize is that they've been tagged or figured out by Charlie the Cop, Stewart Bardley, who was on the scene of crime and is now intent to get the piece of hot ice or jewelry off their hands. Tracking the quartet from their home base in Philadelphia to the seaside town of Atlantic City Charlie and his girlfriend Della, Martha Vickes, plan to rob them of the necklace before they can get it, by having the necklace fenced, off their hands. Charlie feels in that him being a member of law enforcement he can murder the entire bunch and still get away with it by claiming self-defense on his part.***SPOILERS*** With Nat hiding the necklace in Gladden's hotel room in the Oceanview Hotel in Atlantic City Charlie who's been romancing her in order to find it now has no choice but to keep Nat as well as Gladden alive in order for them to lead him to it. Wih Dohmer gunned down by state dropper's and Baylock murdered by Charlie it's now down to three, Charlie Gadden & Nat, who know where the necklace is and with the exception of Gladden, who's far more interested in getting a suntan, are determined at all cost to find it. Downbeat ending with Nat risking and losing his life in having his step-sister Gladden get out of harms or Charlie's way. Charlie himself who thought he's gotten away with murder, the murder of both Baylock and Nat, ends up cuffed and with his jaw broken when his girlfriend Della, who he's been cheating on, ratted him out in him having the stolen necklace on him just when it looked like he was home free.

Henry Hathaway's movie The Black Rose concerns a Saxon squire who travels to China and back again during the Middle Ages encountering marvels, romance and adventures along the way. It's a pretty and fun Technicolor movie containing a soupçon of rapture. On an intellectual level it can be fairly piffling until close to the end when the Norman King of England refuses to persecute the rebel Walter any longer, recognising that his animosity towards Normans is far from treason, but just a political manifestation of something very personal, conflict with his father. It was an eye opener to me at the time, how much Freudian issues play a subliminal part in our politics. This sort of mature perspective is to be found in The Burglar. It represents an opening up, an efflorescence of noir, typical of the late era (Mickey One, Blast of Silence). In noir authority is often an oppressive force, but in The Burglar, there's the suggestion that it's not the authorities and the system that pre-figure our doom, but our upbringing. It's up to you though, there's leeway for you to see it either way. Who's the enemy is it dad or Big Brother? In one scene, seemingly totally unconnected from the rest of the film, Nat (The Burglar - Dan Duryea) mooches around the precincts of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and is seen sitting directly below the statue of John Barry, the first head of the United States Navy, in Independence Square, three miles away, just moments before. In sight is Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The locations are deserted and he's watched over by some sort of passant sculptural beastie and towered over by fluted columns. Are these relics of the past or an overarching system and structure in which he's alternately powerless and hounded or irrelevant? Does the beastie see him, or is it just a charming piece of stone and is the indelible stain of Dad the issue he can't rub off? I saw a film Paul Wendkos made decades later, Hell Boats, and there was a general ambivalence there as well, which I find very stimulating and mature. There are no easy answers to The Burglar. Although I've mentioned Freud, The Burglar isn't one of those annoying movies that are dogmatically Freudian snoozers; the conversations surrounding the past all come off as extremely natural in effect.A little tardily, onto the plot! A bunch of small time burglars figure they can up the ante and go for some sparklers. It doesn't take a genius to work out that fate's cosh is waiting for each of them in the shadows one way or the other. Dan Duryea's lead is the standout, but you gotta feel sorry for Peter Capell's hyperactive pop-eyed lookout Baylock. Scared of his own shadow he dreams of owning a plantation in Central America, he hysterically calls it buying "ground", as if what he stands on the rest of the time is something that might open up and swallow him at any time. It's just so clever how this movie grinds out a noir atmosphere with slight tricks of vocabulary.Even loving this movie with all my heart, I must admit that a relevant criticism for many genre fans wondering if they should watch The Burglar or not is that it lacks thrill in the middle section of the film, principally because Nat has a death wish and isn't putting up much of a fight. Things pick up for the finale on the famous Atlantic City Steel Pier, which comes off as a merging the skews of Lady From Shanghai and Mickey One.Wendkos' film should have lead to a glittering career, but more meretricious aesthetics triumphed.

This is a suspenseful and actually a pretty popular movie with Dan Duryea, femme fa-tale Martha Vickers, and a young, baby faced little starlet named Jayne Mansfield (a month before her Broadway triumph). Pure 1950s film noir here. The only copies available are poor VHS copies that sell for $25.00 or $30.00 on Ebay. It's ashame because it is a good film with all around impressive performances. Definitely needs an official DVD release. Filmed in 1955 but released in 1957 to cash in on Jayne's fame. Filmed in Philadelphia about 1 hour from where Jayne lived until she was 6, and is buried at, Pen Argyl. The plot line: Petty thief Duryea and his gang of 'thugs' go on a big heist at a local wealthy woman's mansion. In comes little 'sister' to Duryea Jayne, to help size the place up and get a feel for where the jewels are. Chaos ensues and Duryea ends up sending Jayne to Atlantic City (after the heist has been pulled off) only to find out she is having an affair with (MAJOR SPOILER) the policeman investigating the robbery! Good plot line and a great nostalgic look at Baby Jayne before she went Hollywood.