Quicksand

Here's an unusual film noir because it stars an actor that you wouldn't think would be in a crime film: Mickey Rooney.

But, like a lot of comedians, singers and other non-dramatic actors, Rooney could surprise you with his dramatic talents. He wasn't all Andy Hardy fluff.

Rooney was a fine, fine actor and he does a good job here in this role as a man who makes one mistake after another. Those mistakes compound into a major crime and Rooney winds up in major trouble. In fact, it's pretty amazing to watch this unfold as one small crime leads to one thing after another making things worse and worse as it goes along.

Jeanne Cagney is good as the typically-floozy blonde who is prevalent in so many of these film noirs. Barbara Bates is the wholesome good girl, but she really makes some stupid decisions late in the film, too. In other words, the three main characters are not evil people but they have major flaws.

Overall, it's an odd film of sorts and one that starts slowly but gets better and better as the story progresses. Definitely worth a look to see Rooney play this kind of role.

One of the best "B" pictures ever. The milieu - garage, bar, shoddy amusement park - is appropriate and effectively conveyed. Small people, big dreams, temptation, one seemingly insignificant event leading to another: believable and compelling drama, played out in glaring light and sinister shadows. Peter Lorre's quiet menace and Jeanne Cagney's worldly sleaze are particularly outstanding. Mickey Rooney may be somewhat miscast, but his performance adds notably to the rising tension - as does everything else in this fine picture.

All-time memorable moment: Bumping the gypsy fortune teller's booth in the dark arcade, setting off flashing light and jangling music.

If you have then this film is for you. Mickey Rooney plays a mechanic who wants to take a waitress out on a date but doesn't have enough cash to impress her with. He steals and then needs to commit more crimes and bigger crimes to cover his tracks. Finally his walk on the wildside ends in murder. But is the guy dead or just knocked out?

Without giving away the ending a similar film is Detour which had a lot of trouble with the censors for its own ending. In my opinion braving the censors gives Detour more punch. But Quicksand is still an enjoyable Film Noir and one of my favourite Mickey Rooney films. We see Rooney in too many musicals and family films. Quicksand gives him a dark side.

Quicksand is immediately at pains to establish that auto-mechanic Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney) is a *very* average guy, there's no monotone narrator to say, "Be careful or this may happen to you" but there might as well be. The first fifteen minutes or so drag along interminably through a lunch-counter and a mechanic shot before Dan "borrows" a twenty from the register to take a blonde out dancing, thus beginning a brief but intense criminal career.

Rooney is surprisingly convincing as the dissatisfied, and really quite dishonest, mechanic. He doesn't try anything cute, playing this role as straight as any I've ever seen out of him (admittedly not much), though his "inner monologue" narration rapidly wears out its welcome. Despite his being set up as an everyman character, I found him pleasingly sneaky, cowardly, and unlikeable.

The afore-mentioned blonde is Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney). Brady has already been provided with a self-sacrificing brunette good girl that he's trying to get rid of, so right away you know that the only question you've got to answer about the blonde Vera is whether she's a broad, a dame, a floozie, or a hussy (turns out she's two of the four, but I'll let you find out which). Cagney is really only passable as the manipulative, materialistic, femme fatale.

Peter Lorre shows up, barely, as Nick, the crooked owner of a penny arcade where Vera once worked. Lorre and Rooney engage in some minor fisticuffs over Cagney (who must have been thinking that her brother could take them both with one hand tied behind his back).

After the tepid opening Quicksand actually does build up a decent head of steam as Dan Brady sinks deeper and deeper into the eponymous morass. It's clearly a written-to-order morality play but it moves quickly, punches hard enough to get the job done, and isn't entirely unbelievable. In the end melodrama beats film noir by a nose, or is it a couple furlongs? I couldn't help thinking Quicksand zigged when it should have zagged.

Above average, often underrated low budget film noir of a somewhat pleasantly restrained Rooney who finds himself in escalating hot water stemming from his "borrowing" $20 from his employers cash register. (He's a mechanic at a car dealership)

Instead of a comedy of errors, the film is rather a thriller of errors with Rooney making honest and dishonest mistakes/decisions that build on each other from scene to scene to a point that Rooney is desperate to get out of the hot water he finds himself in at every turn. He's in trouble with his nasty boss, his money hungry girlfriend (Jeanne Cagney), the police, a sleazy (Peter Lorre)amusement park gameroom owner, etc...

He's caught in a whirlpool of lies, deceit, and lust (for a snobish/vampish girlfriend who is never satisfied) and a hunger for the money that he feels will get him out of all his trouble. He doesn't appreciate and is callous toward the wholesome girl (ex-girlfriend ??) who seems to want him despite his faults. He's a lot more interested in the allure of the bombshell Jeanne Cagney instead and is bored by Ms. Wholesome.

Rooney biographies claim that Mickey didn't think much of this film since it didn't do much to revive his sagging career in the early 1950's. Still, there's a lot to recommend it...with solid acting, atmospheric black and white photography and staging, especially of the amusement park and oceanside locale.