Criss
Cross
(1949) is a romantic triangle told noir style involving three poor souls who
can’t help being themselves. There’s a
heist in there, too.
This
is my entry into the Classic Movie Blog Association fall blogathon: “Blogathon & the Beast” featuring characters
battling, or losing the battle, with their primal inclinations. In my house, we’ve always called that being
your own worst enemy. But there are
enemies aplenty in this yarn, to be sure.
Burt
Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo are in their prime here as both stunningly
photogenic and emblematic of the scowling hopelessness of fate in film
noir. Dan Duryea, a favorite sniveling
baddie, is the third point in the triangle.
Love and betrayal go together like a horse and carriage. Or something like that.
The
story is set in Los Angeles (where else?) with an aerial shot over the credits
of a misty twilight, as we move toward the Bunker Hill section of town that is
no more. Like director Robert Siodmak’s camera
shots, the streets are always at a treacherous angle. We get lots of location views, including
Union Station, and the famous Angel’s Flight funicular, which we covered
previously here in The Turning Point (1952) and in this essay specifically on the Angel’s Flight in movies.
Burt
provides occasional narration, and the plot is revealed drip by drip, so we are
always left off balance and wondering. He
is returning home to L.A. after a year of travel about the States, working here
and there, coming back to his mother’s house to renew acquaintance with his younger
brother, played by Richard Long; his boyhood pal police detective Stephen McNally;
and the bar and nightclub where he used to hang out before he went into a
self-imposed exile.
The
reason for his exile and the reason for his return appear to be the same: Yvonne De Carlo.
The
movie starts with great energy by plunking us down in the middle of a
crisis. Miss De Carlo and Mr. Lancaster,
clutching each other between parked cars in the parking lot of the night club,
seem to infer that there’s a plan about to the hatched, and she wishes it were
all over. He tells her to wait in a
secluded cottage by the beach many miles away, and they must not be seen
together.
“It’ll
be you and me, the way it should have been from the start.”
Inside,
gangster Dan Duryea, smarmy even in an immaculate white dinner jacket, is curt
and suspicious when Yvonne enters, badgering her with questions. Aha!
She’s his wife and she’s messing around with Burt!
Burt’s
old pal Stephen McNally sticks his nose in and warns Burt off her and they argue. He wants to prevent a fight between Burt and
Duryea, but he can’t. They fight, and when
he attempts to arrest Duryea for having a knife, both men act like nothing’s
wrong. They don’t want the cops
involved. They both go out in the alley
at a dirty old iron set tub to wash.
They don’t have a men’s room?
Here,
Duryea, his gang, and Burt have a splintered discussion that clues us in to
their mysterious behavior. The fight is
fake. They are setting up the cops. But how, and why?
We
next see Burt at his job, an armored car driver chatting with his work pals,
including old man “Pop” who is his partner and rides in the back of his truck
with the money. They are headed out on a
highway, and we see over Burt’s shoulder in the back of the truck is a
rifle. Director Siodmak is meticulous in
dropping foreshadowing hints.
But
as Burt drives and his mind wanders, we finally get the required noir flashback
to tell us the whole story.
Burt
has returned to sunny L.A. after a year spent trying to his get ex-wife out of
his system. Yvonne De Carlo. He swears he’s over her, but we see he’s
not. His worried mother, who never liked
Yvonne, sees he’s not. His interfering
pal, Stephen McNally, sees he’s not.
Most especially, a delighted Yvonne De Carlo sees he’s not.
He
goes to old haunts trying to accidently run into her on purpose, and finally
encounters her at the nightclub dancing a vigorous rumba with Tony Curtis is
his first film role.
After
a verbal and psychological tug of war between them, Burt wants to get together
again, is eager for it, but she disappears and afterward he finds out she has
married Dan Duryea.
But
why? Especially when after several
months he stalks her again and she haughtily barks at him, but eventually breaks
down and says she had no choice. Stephen
McNally threatened to run her in and send her to prison on trumped-up charges
if she didn’t stay clear of Burt. So she
married Duryea, who treats her badly.
One look at the bruises on her back, and Burt is steadfastly her hero
again, ready to fight the world to protect her and defy family and friends, heaven
and earth, to keep her to himself, where he will make her safe and happy. She is a tragic figure. So is Burt, by virtue of his big, stubborn heart.
The
movie is full of favorite character actors in bit roles, including Percy Helton
as the bartender, Griff Barnett as Pop, John Doucette as one of Duryea’s mob. We have to feel at least a little sorry for
Joan Miller for being known in the script and on the credits only as “Lush,”
though she does get a few good scenes on her barstool.
The
dynamics shift again when Duryea and his gang surprise Burt and Yvonne at Burt’s
mother’s house, and we think for a moment Burt is going to be fitted for cement
shoes, but Burt surprises everyone with a hastily thought-up excuse to not only
diffuse the situation, but to also hatch a plan for his intended escape with
Yvonne.
He
tries to interest Duryea in a heist of the armored car he drives. Burt will be the inside man in the crime. Duryea bites, and they proceed to have a meeting
in an empty apartment right next to the Angel’s Flight funicular with an expert
to help them plan the heist: dapper Alan
Napier, who we can see without much explanation, is an intellectual loner, with
his books, his chessboard, his educated speech and demeanor, and his weakness
for alcohol. Everyone here has a
weakness.
He
plots out the scheme with mathematical precision, while the gang hovers about
drinking beer, and Yvonne De Carlo watches morosely, tensely, clearly fearful
of the consequences and not being able to get away with Burt.
The
ploy involves driving the armored truck at a specific time and location,
passing by an ice cream truck to be used to take the loot away, a couple of
plants at a manhole who will discharge smoke bombs at the right moment, plenty
of firepower, and some gas masks. Burt’s
only requirement is that Pop not get hurt, and they all agree.
It’s
a nice bit where the gang member who poses as the ice cream truck man pulls a
kid away from the traffic about to be hit by the armored car at the last
minute.
But
things go wrong, and Pop is killed, and Burt tries to save what’s left by
firing his gun on the baddies. He is
shot, too, and he wakes in the hospital, told he is a hero because he saved
half the payroll.
Only
his pal, cop Stephen McNally suspects Burt was in on it. He warns him that Duryea will be after
him. Burt tells him to shove off, but
spends an anxious night worried that any sound in the hospital corridor will
mean one of Duryea’s boys has come to get him.
There’s
a nice duality between two scenes with dressers: Earlier in the apartment when the gang is
planning the heist and a few of them sit playing cards around a dresser for a
table. The dresser has supports for a
mirror, but the mirror is missing. Later
in his hospital room, Burt is riveted on the dresser with a tilted mirror, trying to see the man sitting in the chair in the hall.
A
terrific suspenseful scene with Robert Osterloh, who plays a man visiting his
wife in the hospital—who turns out not to be quite that, and we find ourselves
with Burt and Yvonne reunited at the secret hideaway, because Burt bribed
Osterloh to get him there.
Now
that Burt’s got everything he wants—Yvonne and half the money from the heist—he
thinks his troubles are over and he’s outsmarted everyone. “I just wanted to hold you in my arms, to
take care of you.”
Yvonne,
who was never stupid, blows up at him. Osterloh,
she says, will run right back to Duryea and tell them where they are. How could he be so stupid? She packs her things, and the money, and
briskly and in no uncertain terms, without an ounce of guilt, tells him she has
to look after herself. Everyone
does. It’s just how people are. She’s going to leave him there, helpless and
injured, and broke.
Poor
Burt is gobsmacked. For such a clever,
quick-thinking guy, he never thought of this.
He never thought she was really as mercenary as everyone said.
Duryea
shows up, just like Yvonne knew he would, and plugs them both, and Burt’s last
sensation is of holding her in his arms when she claws at him for protection.
Then
with satisfaction, Duryea turns away, and then a look of horror as we hear approaching
sirens. Osterloh has sold him out, too. With all the bribes he’s taken just this
night, he’s got to be filthy rich.
Criss
cross. Every betrayal merits a
double-cross. In the film noir world, it’s
just the way things are. Yvonne De Carlo
knows it. Burt can’t help being who he
is, even after hard lessons. Duryea and
his boys know no other life. All of them
fight the beast within.
Except
maybe Pop. He’s a nice old fella.
For
more great blog entries in CMBA’s “Blogathon & the Beast” have a look here.
************
Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.
