Amazon.com: A certified film noir classic, Criss Cross embraces the genre's darkness with an uncompromising tale of doomed lovers and multilayered betrayal. Reuniting with director Robert Siodmak after their success with The Killers, Burt Lancaster plays a love-struck loser who seals his fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgment. She encourages their torrid affair but marries a mobster (Dan Duryea); to deflect suspicion, Lancaster lures Duryea into an armored-truck robbery, creating a vortex of greed and passion from which he cannot escape. Featuring the brief screen debut of Tony Curtis, Criss Cross is a stylish masterpiece of clashing fates and fatal attractions; Franz Planer's cinematography creates a shadow world in which every desire is tainted by the threat of violence, and Miklos Rozsa's score underlines a love story that could never end happily. Film noir doesn't get any bleaker--or better--than this. --Jeff Shannon
Among the best of film noir This is classic film noir in all respects: dark moody lighting, flawed "hero", femme fatale, jealous husband, gray-area moral quandaries, pessimistic tone, average person unwittingly gets swept up into a bad situation, unhappy ending, jaded, pseudo-sophisticated dialog. How about this gem of dialog where the Burt Lancaster character says:
"A man eats an apple. He gets a piece of the core stuck between his teeth. He tries to work it out with some cellophane from a cigarette pack. What happens? The cellophane gets stuck in there too. Anna? What was the use. I knew that somehow I'd wind up seeing her that night."
I love the extended scene of the band playing an interesting rhumba (a little over 2 minutes) when the Burt Lancaster character walks into the Round-Up Club, looking for Anna. They show Esy Morales and His Rhumba Band playing a pretty swinging, pretty cool rhumba ("Jungle Fantasy") that I like a lot. (Never heard it before the movie, but like it now.) I like it when movies do that sort of extravagance, e.g., when Hoagy Carmichael performs several numbers in "To Have And To Have Not", or Ida Lupino's songs in "Road House" -- some good, extended singing in those too. Really adds a touch of class.
This one is a gem. An outstanding film noir story that keeps you gripped, and the film restoration brings outstanding picture quality.
Man Does Wrong to Win Love This is a great noir. Lancaster is a man governed by forces he cannot understand. He wants to get away from ex-wife DeCarlo but can't thinking about her and seeking her out, even after she marries creepy Dan Duyea and thus commits himself to crime just to win her back. "Man does wrong to win love" is the most basic film noir plot, and this is one of the early films to set it in stone. Aside from the great story, characters, and dialog, the film has great sets long exterior shots of parts of L.A. that no longer exist, like the Bunker Hill neighborhood.
Which movie is it? The film shown on this Amazon page is a drama about a twelve year old boy (David Arnott) raised by a single mom (Goldie Hawn), who happens to be a stripper, in Key West in 1969. It's a well-made film with good acting, but nothing special; it grabs your attention to the situation, but never really resolves it very insightfully. Most reviewers here have mistakenly written about the 1949 Burt Lancaster film Criss Cross which takes place in Los Angeles, not Key West. So which is this, the Goldie Hawn movie, shown, or the Burt Lancaster film, as described? I guess I'd give both 4 stars, but would like to know what I'm buying!
A doomed unequited love affair The Robert Siodmak directed "Criss Cross", has all the classic underpinnings for film noir, black and white cinematography, a plot bordering on criminality and a manipulative bad girl.
The sultry Yvonne DeCarlo plays Anna, the self serving black hearted ex-wife of Burt Lancaster. Lancaster, in an early role, plays good natured schnook Steve Thompson who stills pines for his ex. He left L.A. in order to get her out of his system but is lured back hopelessly infatuated, much to the chagrin of good friend detective Lt. Pete Ramirez played by Stephen McNally. The trouble is is that DeCarlo is now married to L.A. mobster Slim Dundee played by Dan Duryea. Lancaster, an armored car driver, in desperation schemes to ally himself with Duryea in a hold up. With his share of the take, he hopes to run away with DeCarlo.
As in all film noir, we see that crime doesn't pay and the plot leads to the inevitable downfall of all the major players in this solid 1949 flick.
A fine, bleak noir, close to great, where a person's destiny is written on his face like an epitaph "I didn't come back on account of her. It had nothing to do with her. I wasn't going to go looking for her. I didn't expect to run into her. I didn't particularly want to see her. I was sure of that if I was sure of anything. Then from the start it all went one way. It was in the cards or it was fate or a jinx or whatever you want to call it."
Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) is a drifter, taking jobs where he finds them. He'd been married to Anna (Yvonne De Carlo) for seven months two years ago. He thought he had her out of his system when he returned to Los Angeles. He was wrong. He starts dropping in at The Roundup, an old hangout, telling himself he isn't there to see her. One evening he spots her there dancing. She's with Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea), a known gangster. The old story starts up again. In a way he sees what's coming. "Half the time you don't know what you're doing," he tells her, "the trouble is you always know what you want." An old friend, Detective Lieutenant Pete Ramirez, tries to tell him she's bad news. Steve's mother tries to talk sense to him. "You know, Steve," she says to him while he's getting ready to meet Anna, "you're a very nice looking boy. Out of all the girls in Los Angeles why did you have to pick on her?...A girl puts on a piece of silk and the next thing that happens, a fellow like you is sure he knows exactly what he's doing." Steve and Anna start to have good times, if good times means going to the beach or a movie or The Roundup. Then one night at The Roundup, waiting for Anna to show up, he's told she's not coming...she got married to Dundee. Dundee may be a criminal, but he has what Anna wants...money.
Then Anna and Steve start seeing each other again. Anna shows the bruises she says she got from Dundee. And Dundee is no fool. One afternoon Anna goes to Steve's home while his mother is out...and Dundee and his gang catch them there. "Hello, baby," Dundee says to his wife while Steve stands nearby in his undershirt. "You know it don't look right," he tells her, "you can't exactly say it looks right, now can you?" Steve makes up a story about how he was meeting Anna just to set up a meeting with Dundee. "What meeting," Dundee asks. You can see the machinery work behind Steve's eyes. A holdup, he says. We can crack an armored car delivery because that's where I work. I'll be Mr. Inside. We'll split fifty-fifty. Steve's committed now. He'll have the money to run away with Anna and she'll be free of Dundee.
As with all fatalistic noirs, of course, it doesn't work out that way. By the time we get to the bleak, night-time ending in a cottage on the California coast, there have been double and triple crosses, betrayals and a loss of innocence that's sad to see.
Is this one of the great noirs, where content isn't as important as style and where a person's destiny is written on his face like an epitaph? Not quite, but it comes close. What I found missing was the lack of empathy between myself and Steve Thompson. Lancaster plays him like just an innocent, well-intentioned guy, a big, dumb lug way over his depth in his relationship with a woman who wants a lot more than just being content with Steve Thompson. Lancaster was a smart, dynamic actor. I had trouble accepting that he was so under Anna's spell that nothing she did raised any questions with him. De Carlo does a nice job as Anna, a character who is selfish and wants money, but who also is being pushed around. Steve gives her the benefit of every doubt, but no one else comes even close to that. The most interesting character, in my view, is Dan Duryea as Slim Dundee. He may be a double-crossing gangster, but we come to believe he really loves Anna. As bleak as the ending is, the last look at Duryea's face is a fine piece of acting.
The movie also has some set pieces which help build a lot of tension during the second half. Handled very well are the planning of the robbery in a smoke-filled room, the tear-gas attack and the shoot-out around the armored truck, the extended scene in the hospital when Steve believes Dundee is going to send someone to get him, the drama between Anna and the wounded Steve at the ocean-side cottage and that ending. If you tend toward bouts of depression, you might want to skip the last few minutes.
There's also Percy Helton, a short, balding actor with a round face and one of the most distinctive voices among Hollywood character actors, hoarse and breathy. He's one of any number of interesting actors we can't remember the name of but we recognize the face and style. He plays Frank, the bartender at The Roundup, and he does a great job.
The DVD transfer looks very good. There are no extras.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
