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DVD Criss Cross
A certified film noir classic, Criss Cross embraces the genre's darkness with an uncompromising tale of doomed lovers and multilayered betrayal. Reuniting with director Robert Siodmak after their success with The Killers, Burt Lancaster plays a love-struck loser who seals his fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgment. She encourages their torrid affair but marries a mobster (Dan Duryea); to deflect suspicion, Lancaster lures Duryea into an armored-truck robbery, creating a vortex of greed and passion from which he cannot escape. Featuring the brief screen debut of Tony Curtis, Criss Cross is a stylish masterpiece of clashing fates and fatal attractions; Franz Planer's cinematography creates a shadow world in which every desire is tainted by the threat of violence, and Miklos Rozsa's score underlines a love story that could never end happily. Film noir doesn't get any bleaker--or better--than this. --Jeff Shannon
This review is for the 2004 Universal Studios DVD.
The basic storyline of this film involves a man named Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) who returns to his old Los Angeles neighborhood after a long hiatus working odd jobs all over the country. It's not well explained why he came back, but it becomes obvious he has an interest in seeing his ex-wife Anna (Yvonne DeCarlo). When the two finally meet, they first seem glad to be together, but things start to fall apart again, so Anna elopes with a notorious gangster named Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). It didn't take too long for Anna to figure out that her marriage to Dundee was a mistake and Thompson gets involved with Anna again and this sets up a potentially dangerous love triangle.
Overall this is a very good movie, but for me not a great one for me since it has just too many similarities to a film that director Robert Siodmak made 3 years earlier, "The Killers" which is a noir masterpiece. "Criss Cross" has that unmistakable film noir look and mood and there a very few slow moments in the film. If you like crime movies from this era, you will not be disappointed.
As for the DVD, the B&W picture is sharp and slightly grainy, but free from any noticeable imperfections, even tiny ones. The audio is very good for a film this old. The only bonus is a trailer.
Movie: B+
DVD Quality: A
Hard-bitten fun in glorious black and white
An armored car driver (Burt Lancaster) involves himself in a robbery scheme in order to protect both himself and his ex-wife (Yvonne de Carlo), whom he still loves and is now married to a local gangster (Dan Duryea). This is a hard, uncompromising example of film noir, featuring great performances and generating true suspense. The finale of this film is certainly no cop-out and demonstrates that, although films of the 40s were not as graphic as those of today, they were nevertheless often edgier and tougher than most of what comes out now.
Obsession vs Greed in a Great Classic Film Noir.
"Criss Cross" is based on the novel of the same name by Don Tracy and directed by the great noir director Robert Siodmak. Obsessive behavior, the hallmark of so many Siodmak films, is the story's driving force. Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) returns to Los Angeles after a year's absence, still preoccupied by thoughts of his brief marriage two years ago. Unable to forget his lovely, passionate ex-wife Anna (Yvonne DeCarlo), Steve tries to rekindle their relationship. But Anna runs off to marry her gangster boyfriend, Slim Dundee (Dan Duryen). Unhappy in her new arrangement, Anna begins to see Steve again. When Dundee catches them together, Steve concocts an explanation on the spot that he believes will save them from Dundee's wrath: Steve tells Dundee that he wants his help in carrying out an armored car heist.
In great noir tradition, Steve and Anna are a man with a weakness and a woman with an agenda. Much of the story is told in flashback with voiceover narration by Steve, who seems to think that his problems were fated instead of the result of his own obsession. There is a bit of morbid irony when Steve's old friend, police Lieutenant Ramirez (Stephen McNally), points out that if Anna has double-crossed him, Steve may get away with his crime, but if she hasn't, Steve is a dead man. So much for loyalty. Burt Lancaster fills the bill nicely as a basically good man who does dumb things. And Yvonne DeCarlo has an unaffected manner that makes Anna very seductive. "Criss Cross" is truly enjoyable top notch film noir.
The DVD: There is a theatrical trailer (2:20 minutes). Captions are available for the film in English. Subtitles are available in Spanish and French.
Alan Ladd is razor sharp as Raven, a contract killer who likes cats and kills witnesses. The first 15 minutes of this film is excellent noir. A hit man (Ladd) lives in a shabby hotel, when the smart mouthed maid enters to clean she slaps his kitten aside, prompting Ladd to knock her to the floor, tearing her dress. Ladd then proceeds to his first job in the film and on the way up the stairs en route to the apartment where his soon-to-be victim resides he encounters a girl in leg braces. Ladd is so good, as is the directing, we are not sure if he is going to retrieve the ball that has bounced out of her reach or blow her brains out with his Colt .32 pistol.
Also excellent is the photography, set between San Francisco and Los Angeles, many great shots include a gas works... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Veronica Lake - Alan Ladd Director(s): Frank Tuttle DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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What if you were asked to investigate a murder in which you were the prime suspect? From this seemingly impossible notion comes a grandly entertaining nail-biter. Charles Laughton plays the punctuality obsessed, slave-driving head of a publishing empire who won't let his crime magazine's star editor (Ray Milland) take a day off to spend with his family. The overworked Milland, having just upset a delayed honeymoon trip for the umpteenth time, goes on a sorrow-drowning, bar-hopping bender with a mysterious woman who, it turns out, is Laughton's mistress. Later that night after Milland has gone home, Laughton murders her, and the next day he assigns Milland to investigate, since a number of clues point to her having spent time with another man that night. Milland, then, must not only find... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ray Milland - Maureen O'Sullivan Director(s): John Farrow DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The synopsis of this film is that a beautiful singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is separated from her alcoholic husband Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) and refuses to even let him visit her in her swanky high-rise apartment. This depresses Martin so much that he goes on a major bender, but on that same night Mavis is discovered murdered in her apartment by man named Kirk Bennett (John Phillips). While in the apartment, Bennett realizes that someone else is in the apartment, possibly the murderer, but somehow this person slips past Bennett. For some reason Bennett decides not to call the police but instead flees the scene of the crime but is seen by Mavis's maid. The police come to Bennett's home and break the news to his wife... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Dan Duryea - June Vincent - Peter Lorre Director(s): Roy William Neill DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The long-awaited emergence of Nightmare Alley into the light of DVD should achieve two things: make a legendary film noir available to a new generation, and restore the horrific charge to the lately watered-down term geek, a concept that once had the power to give people very bad dreams indeed.
To his lasting credit, Tyrone Power--20th Century Fox's extraordinarily handsome but not terribly interesting star of the '30s and '40s--begged for the chance to play Stan Carlisle, the predatory charmer who snakes his way through this bracingly unwholesome story. A spieler for--and lover of--carnival mind reader Zeena (Joan Blondell), he displays uncanny skill at "reading" the susceptible rubes, including a tough sheriff who turns to jelly after Stan psychs him out. Once Stan's... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tyrone Power - Joan Blondell - Coleen Gray Director(s): Edmund Goulding DVD Release Date: Released the 07 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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