Lotta things to like about this 50s crime drama/noir, chief among them Mickey Rooney's effectively low key (yeah, you heard that right) performance as a loner/loser. Amazing how good this usually obnoxious actor can be when he drops the obnoxiousness, huh? And since Rooney rarely does this onscreen (honestly can't think of any other time, can you?) guess you have to credit director Richard Quine, along with Mick. Also quite good are the sleazy duo of Kevin McCarthy (almost as oleaginous as the current minority leader of the House, whose name he shares) and Jack Kelly showing there was more to him than Jim Garner's understudy. Co writers Blake Edwards and Quine perfectly capture McCarthy's insincere insidiousness as well as Kelly's extremely annoying compulsive jokiness. And the slacker, Malibu beach house world these two jerks inhabit is perfectly rendered through the lens of cinematographer Charles Lawton. There are some definite downers, however. Dianne Foster is not a skilled enough actress to pull off the femme fatale with a heart role and Edwards and Quine's otherwise good script has Rooney's character change from "no way I'm doing a bank heist" to "yeah I'm in" in under two minutes of screen time. Not a lot of credibility there. And the score is way too melodic and swelling for a noir. So, let's give it a B.
Review of Drive a Crooked Road
