Violent Saturday (1955)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Richard Fleischer

Writers:

Sydney Boehm (writer)
William L. Heath (novel)

Release Date:

April 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

A number of otherwise insignificant small-town stories erupt into drama when a gang of hoodlums decides to rob the local bank...

Plot Keywords:

Thief | Amish | Bank Robber | Peeping Tom | Plans

Cast

Victor Mature	...	Shelley Martin
Richard Egan	...	Boyd Fairchild
Stephen McNally	...	Harper (bank robber)
Virginia Leith	...	Linda Sherman
Tommy Noonan	...	Harry Reeves, Bank Manager
Lee Marvin	...	Dill, Bank Robber
Margaret Hayes	...	Mrs. Emily Fairchild
J. Carrol Naish	...	Chapman, Bank Robber
Sylvia Sidney	...	Elsie Braden
Ernest Borgnine	...	Stadt, Amish Farmer
Dorothy Patrick	...	Helen Martin
Billy Chapin	...	Steve Martin
Brad Dexter	...	Gil Clayton
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Virginia Carroll	...	Carol, Martin's Secretary
Ann Morrison	...	Mrs. Martha Stadt
Harry Seymour	...	Train Conductor

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording) (optical prints) | 4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Recording) (magnetic prints)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Bisbee, Arizona, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Quotes:

Bobby Martin: [while bank is being robbed] Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Chapman, Bank Robber: C'mere kid. C'mere!
[offers candy]
Chapman, Bank Robber: Stick these in your kisser and go suck on 'em. Now go back to your mother.
Chapman, Bank Robber: Thank you!
Chapman, Bank Robber: You're welcome.

"Shove 'em in your kisser, son...now go over there and suck on 'em."

Combination crime-thriller and soap opera, presumably a contract picture from Fox with many familiar faces (and Ernest Borgnine inexplicably cast as an Amish farmer!), turns out to be a pretty exciting movie. Three hoods plot to stick up a small town bank; meanwhile, hormones are boiling over at the new copper plant, with the foreman's son drinking himself into a stupor while his cheating wife runs around on the golf course (she tells him, "You're an alcoholic...and I'm a tramp!"). There's also a married banker who lusts after a shapely new nurse, a librarian with sticky fingers, and Victor Mature as a graduate whose oldest child is ashamed that his father never served his country. Director Richard Fleischer sets up the pieces of this story very carefully, almost sluggishly, yet after about an hour of exposition the plot really starts cooking. There are some strong images here, and vivid cinematography by Charles G. Clarke (with excellent location shooting in Bisbee, Arizona and terrific usage of De Luxe color stock). The ensemble cast works admirably together, no one person upstaging the other, however crooked Lee Marvin makes a fantastic entrance stepping on a child's hand in the street! Gripping, tense, and surprisingly well-written, with Richard Egan getting an emotional monologue at the end about the unfairness of death. An injured Amish child is forgotten about in the rush of excitement, and Borgnine in a Lincoln beard strains credibility, but the technical aspects and direction of the film are top-notch. *** from ****