Violent Saturday (1955)

Captivating movie !

A Disappointing Continuation

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Three men come to a small town to rob the bank and several of the local citizens get caught up in it. It sounds simple but there is a lot going on, building slowly as the robbers make their plans and the townsfolk sort out their personal lives until the robbery itself when Saturday explodes into violence affecting the citizens for good or for ill. Filmed excellently in colour and widescreen by Charles G. Clarke and directed with a sure hand by the versatile Richard Fleischer you get to know not just the physical look of a town but the darkness beneath the sunny exteriors.The acting all round from a reliable cast is very good. Victor Mature as the reluctant hero, Richard Egan as the unhappy mine owner, Tommy Noonan as the tormented bank manager, Margaret Hayes as the wayward wife and a bearded Ernest Borgnine as an Amish farmer to name a few. The bank robbers perfectly played by Stephen McNally, Lee Marvin and J. Carrol Naish are not branded as evil but just doing a job. Lee Marvin in his sleepless scene is splendid. The veteran Sylvia Sidney has a small role as a librarian with a secret.Well worth a watch.

As a school kid, my Grand-dad took me to see this picture, and it stayed in my mind. BUT, only for the rather undesirable nastiness. Revisiting it again years later, it's hard to believe we managed to stay awake back then! (my wife quite justifiably fell asleep within the first 20mins) This was Hollywood in decline.When television took off and theatres began to close, 20th Century Fox foolishly decided that all their productions would be in CinemaScope and garish DeLux color...even when the subject did not call for it! This decision would see many of their 50s-60s productions filled with artless images ~ this is just one of them. What might have been a tight little B/W crime melodrama gets 'Lost in Gloss' and GIANT screen vistas (mostly shot in pokey little hotel rooms!) The unfortunate Director of Photography: veteran, Charles G. Clarke, and Director: the checkered careered, Richard Fleischer (son of famous Animator Max) had to place and actor in each corner of the room, with one in center just to fill the unnecessary spaces. This often gave many films an empty feel.Then came the change in writing style. Film companies were looking towards TV production for fast profits on small budgets, and because everything made for cinemas would end up on TV, they began making 'BIG' screen TV style movies. Many movie makers and writers had crossed over to TV anyway, and sooner or later it would all look the same. Many viewers didn't seem to know what constituted quality, so on it went.Now we have 'modern' critics looking for all kinds of hidden meaning in these cheaply scripted 50s works ~ along with 'modern' movie makers copying the so-called 'new trend' in violence. Mostly, it simply added up to 'cheap and fast'. 'Violent Saturday' was also treated to overwrought 50s style mellow-drama, a style largely made famous by W.B. TV, and other endless series like Peyton Place, etc, etc...As for performances, we have the capable Stephen McNally wasted in yet another type cast thuggish role ~ Tommy Noonan playing an outlandishly wimpish perv of a bank Manager --a role so hokey it creaks!-- Richard Egan again type cast in a part he's played endlessly ~ Acting honors probably go to veteran Sylvia Sidney in a part that amounts to little more than an unnecessary sub plot. The rest of the women do what they can with thankless roles ~ Victor Mature does what he does best...with a character who talks to his son about 'fear being nothing to be ashamed off', and 'decorated heroics' as not essential in general life --who is then made 'hero' to the towns kids for having killed the most villains-- Lee Marvin just plays Lee Marvin all over again, this time, showing delight in being violently cruel to kids. So this was the so-called bold new 'adult' approach to film-making. This same juvenile 'adult' approach, has continued to fester in movie making today. Screenplay Writer: Sydney Boehm had done better with Fritz Lang just two years earlier with "The Big Heat". Forget "Saturday" look to the "Heat" if you want a better example of low cost 50s Noir that largely still holds up today. Disc quality note: The Bounty DVD copy I bought a few years ago, has poor image quality, regardless of having the Fox logo on the cover. Subsequent re-issues may be better (?)

Actually, I came upon this movie on a blah Sunday morning... and got immediately "sucked into it. I was very surprised at how well made it was, with an excellent cast, wide-screen image, good location filming in Bisbee, Arizona, very limited use of sets and the location filming always attracts me. I'd never seen or heard of this movie before today, and I recommend it to any film addict. The sub-plots are also well thought out...this type of film seemed predominant in the 50's and this one in particular reminded me of other 50's films such as "Bad day at Black Rock". Can't wait to see it again.Rich O

Violent Saturday is a surprisingly entertaining film that mixes classic bank heist movie elements with the kind of over-done social melodrama like Douglas Sirk used to direct.Instead of coming up with a feathered fish, director Richard Fleischer almost creates a new genre, the Woman's Weepie Heist Picture. I don't know how he pulled it off, but he did.Describing the plot for Violent Saturday will not help anyone who may be intrigued by my earlier statements, but here goes.A group of three men arrive in the small California town of Bradenville intending to rob the bank. They have thoroughly cased the joint and their plan is to hit the bank on Friday, just before it closes at noon.Meanwhile, we get to meet the different towns people including Tommy Noonan as a pervert bank manager (this is probably more common than we like to think), the town floozy (Margaret Hayes) who is married to a rich drunk (Richard Egan) and a man who never served in WWII and feels guilty about it played by Victor Mature.Toss in Sylvia Sydney as a purse-stealing librarian (yes, you read that correctly), Virginia Lieth as a sultry nurse of the "Hubba Hubba" type and finally Ernest Borgnine as Stadt, a simple Amish farmer committed to non-violence.To paraphrase Bill Murray in Tootsie, Bradenville is one nutty town. But then the gangsters arrive beginning with the brains of the outfit played by Stephen McNally, followed later by safe-cracking expert J. Carrol Naish and finally the brawn of the gang played with gleeful malice by Lee Marvin.I don't know why people just don't run when they see Lee Marvin approach, for he almost always means bad news. This is demonstrated rather wonderfully early in the film when a young boy bumps into Marvin, knocking his inhaler out of his hands.As the boy apologizes and bends over to pick up the inhaler, Marvin steps on the boys hand and grinds it painfully into the pavement. Great touch!Like most heist films, this one has an intricate plan that depends on proper timing and no slip-ups to work. Our villains have earlier scoped out Borgnine's farm as a safe place to reconnoiter after the robbery where they can divide up the money and escape.The first bit of bad luck occurs when McNally car-jacks Victor Mature who is already smarting because his son does not think he's a hero because of his lack of service in WWII, so Mature is just itching for a chance to prove his mettle.Then Tommy Noonan, the Peeping Tom bank manager turns out not to be such a wimp after all. Grabbing the gun he has hidden in his desk he trades gunfire with the crooks and gets wounded.There is one other casualty however, the town floozy. Even though she has reconciled with her husband and is at the bank to get some Travelers Cheques for a trip, the fact remains she did have an extramarital affair with another man. They even had sex!The punishment for a woman who commits adultery in an old Hollywood film is harsh. Nothing less than a painful, embarrassing death will suffice. The punishment for the man, well, not so harsh.Even with the plan falling apart at the bank, the thieves get away with the money and race off to Borgnine's farm where the crooks have tied up Mature and Borgnine along with his solemn little Amish family.The crooks luck deteriorates further because Mature is able to get himself free from his rope and when they arrive at Borgnine's Amish Farm (I just love the sound of that), Victor Mature is waiting for them.This all culminates in a final shootout that is more violent than I thought possible, but it gets even better. Although Borgnine is completely dedicated to non-violence, after his five year old boy is shot in the cross fire, (kids have it tough in this movie), he is enraged enough to fight back.So, with an act of violence that is shocking, even today, Ernest Borgnine dispatches Lee Marvin by ramming a pitchfork in his back. There were loud cheers from the audience at this point, reminiscent of what happened when the shark got blown up at the end of Jaws.If this all sounds contrived and unbelievable, rest assured it would be if the filmmakers and actors were not so skillful. As Walter Huston once said of his acting, "I'm not paid to make good lines sound good, I'm paid to make bad lines sound good." Indeed, the most improbable of lines are rendered believable by the actors.For example, during the bank robbery, to keep a boy quiet (again with the kids!), J. Carrol Naish hands the boy some hard candy and says, "Stick these in your kisser and go suck on them". Be forewarned, this is a line I am just dying to use in real life.But acting aside, the whole structure of the film very deftly mixes the melodrama of these small town lives with the genre requirements of the bank heist film. I urge young screenwriters to study this picture to learn how to plant narrative bombs that come to fruition later on in the plot without seeming cliché.Violent Saturday was shot in Cinemascope and the wide screen is wonderfully utilized to make this little town seem very sinister, even though almost the entire film occurs during the day under the harsh Southern California sun.If it ever arrives on DVD, definitely rent it.