The Fast and the Furious

John Ireland plays a man who escaped from prison and is trying to make his way to freedom in Mexico. Along the way, he takes a hostage (Dorothy Malone) and steals her car. Most of the movie consists of this journey together to freedom.

When I saw that John Ireland starred in this film, I made extra sure to see it as he's one of my favorite "unknown" actors from Hollywood in the 40s and 50s. I love his films because he was a great Film Noir star--kind of ugly and tough--exactly what you'd expect for the genre where "pretty boys" are unwelcome. However, while this film has a few Film Noir qualities (after all, it's about a man wanted for murder), it really isn't exactly Noir and Ireland's character lacks the delicious evilness that I'd hoped to see. While tough and full of snappy dialog, his character is just too likable and the plot too upbeat to be considered Noir by us purists. In addition, having Malone and Ireland fall in love was just wrong--making no sense and thereby damaged the film's sense of realism--something imperative to have in Noir. Plus, all the grainy stock footage of auto races just seemed cheap and out of place. As a result of all these factors, I was very disappointed and so would be other fans of Noir and it's a low budget time-passer and unfortunately not much else.