20th Century-Fox. Director Richard Fleischer; Producer Buddy Adler; Screenplay Sydney Boehm; Camera Charles G. Clarke; Editor Louis Loeffler; Music Hugo Friedhofer
Victor Mature
Richard Egan
Stephen McNally
Virginia Leith
Lee Marvin
Sylvia Sidney
Lensed on location in Arizona in a modern-day setting, the film concerns the bank robbery planned by a cool trio played by Stephen McNally, Lee Marvin and J. Carrol Naish.
As their preparations for the holdup unfold, several subplots are set up.
Purpose of all the subplots is to set the stage for the holdup, where they all fall into place and are solved by the events of the holdup and what follows. They're highly contrived and unconvincing, but they do serve the purpose of giving the film a greater sense of scope and power.
Climax comes with the robbery itself and the getaway. It's here that the screen version of the William L. Heath novel strips the action of the non-essentials and turns on the heat in a powerful windup that's worth the waiting.
(Color) Widescreen. Extract of a review from 1955. Running time: 90 MIN.
Contact Variety Staff at
news@variety.com