Violent Saturday (1955)

Three men case a small town very carefully, with plans to rob the bank on the upcoming Saturday, which turns violent and deadly.

Director:

Richard Fleischer

Writers:

Sydney Boehm (screenplay), William L. Heath (novel)

Stars:

Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally

Cast

Cast overview:
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

Storyline

A number of otherwise insignificant small-town stories erupt into drama when a gang of hoodlums decides to rob the local bank. A father looking for pride in his son's eyes, a timid clerk who is a peeping tom by night, a man striving to rewin his wife's love, an Amish farmer faced with viciousness, and a proper older woman turned thief, all find themselves entangled with the bank robbers as a peaceful weekend turns violent.

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Plot Keywords:

bank robber | heist | bank robbery | bank | amish | 

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Taglines:

The day all Hell broke loose !

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 April 1955 (USA)

Also Known As:

Les inconnus dans la ville

Filming Locations:

Lowell, Arizona, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$955,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

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

Color:

Color (Color by Deluxe)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In his biography, Ernest Borgnine reports that during the shooting Richard Fleischer asked Victor Mature to do a simple stunt which consisted to dive underneath a car, even with a big hole in the ground. And Mature refused because he had a motorcycle accident in the past on a shooting.

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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.

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Connections

References Shock (1946)

User Reviews

Slick Vic, Snortin' Lee Plus Ernest Borgnine and His Pitchfork

This is a dizzyingly silly fifties crime pic, very watchable, with some capable actors in small roles. Some of the behind-the-scenes people have done some fine work elsewhere, notably director Richard Fleischer and screenwriter Sid Boehm. There's a touch of The Asphalt Jungle in the caper aspect, while Victor Mature's businessman-father-who-didn't-serve-in the-war is out of Stanley Kramer or maybe Studio One. Richard Egan tries ever so hard to bring conviction, and does, to his flashy role of a rich boy alcoholic weakling, but doesn't have the chops to pull the part off. (I can imagine someone like Richard Baeshart might have done better, and even got an Oscar nod had been been cast.) The bad guys, a sinister-looking but bland Steve McNally, a menacing Lee Marvin, and a sometimes jovial J. Carrol Naish, do decent work. The small-town that provides the background for the crime is populated by such hick types as Sylvia Sidney and Tommy Noonan. Nothing about this movie is credible. Everything takes place in a Hollywood-manufactured world, not in itself a bad thing except that the picture makes a serious stab at realism, which is a fatal aesthetic flaw, since the story would have worked better on a smaller scale, in black and white, or on a bigger, more artificial one. The slice-of-life character study part of the picture suggests a small-town Executive Suite, while the examination of the hypocrisies and oddities of Middle America evoke the yet-to-be-made Picnic. There's deja vu all over the place in this one, though to the best of my knowledge Ernest Borgnine had never played an Amish farmer before.