The Burglar

United States

1957

90 Min

Black and White

1.85:1

English

Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
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CAST Dan Duryea, Jayne Mansfield, Martha Vickers, Peter Capell, Mickey Shaughnessy, Wendell K. Phillips, Phoebe Mackay, Stewart Bradley, Richard Emery, Andrea McLaughlin

Gnosis

25Apr12

This is the best film of it's type; i.e. a film in which Dan Duryea's is palmfaced for the entire duration of the film.

A very good late noir with all the tropes covered. It gets the most out of it's low budget with wonderful location shooting and night photography when film stocks weren't very fast and this production had a minimum of lights at its disposal--certainly compared to now. Dan Duryea is always a great crook, and young Jane Mansfield is a surprise. A must for noir buffs by a good director, at least here--Angel Baby too.

Tony Zhou

9Aug11

To me this is one of the first student noirs. It wasn't made by intuition, but by careful study and imitation of other filmmakers (definitely Welles and Hitchcock). Later directors (like Altman and Polanski) would do this better, but sometimes I love watching a young filmmaker work through his influences and try to come out the other side. This director mostly succeeds.

spartacula

6Mar11

Gritty noir with occassional hokey performances; still great to watch. Jewels, dirty copper, femme fatale, lots of shadows. I was five when they shot this in my home town. Enjoyed seeing Atlantic City the way it was before the 'greed machines' took over.

Flying Dutchman likes this