Criss Cross
Criss Cross
NR | 04 February 1949 (USA)
Criss Cross Trailers

Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgement. She encourages their affair but then quickly marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). To deflect suspicion of the affair, Steve Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery.

Reviews
Hellen

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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SunnyHello

Nice effects though.

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WillSushyMedia

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

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Fairaher

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

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milam_ogden

I am writing this review today because it was previewed at the 15th addition of Noir City film festival in San Francisco. It was shown on Friday January 20th, 2017.I owe a copy and have watched it eight (8) times over the last ten years, most recently today. It is one of my favorite film noir movies because of its director Robert Siodmak and the outstanding primary cast. This includes Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo and Dan Duryea. In my opinion, it is De Carlo's best performance in her career.The supporting cast includes: Stephen McNally, Percy Helton, Alan Napier, Meg Randall and Richard Long.When you watch it, look for uncredited performances by Raymond Burr, Tony Curtis, Gene Evans and Diane Stewart.

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JohnHowardReid

Tony Curtis always claimed this was his first movie appearance. He said he was walking around Universal's lot late one afternoon when he literally bumped into Robert Siodmak who asked him, "Can you dance?" When Curtis replied in the affirmative, Siodmak took down his details and later phoned Universal's casting director. When Curtis arrived on the set, he had no idea what he was supposed to do and was amazed to find himself dancing with Yvonne De Carlo. When De Carlo leaves him flat on the floor, Curtis actually continued dancing by himself, earning applause from the crew, but this "solo" was deleted from release prints. In other respects, "Criss Cross" was a typical Siodmak film noir, masterfully directed by Siodmak and superbly photographed by Franz Planer. The screenplay by Daniel Fuchs, based on the 1948 novel of the same title by Don Tracy, still manages to work up almost constant edge-of-the-seat suspense.

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chaos-rampant

As someone wrote to me the other day and was right on point, it's like cinema was invented for film noir. There's nothing like it, in the darkness being set a certain way, the memoryThis is typical; the zigzag of hopeless love, heist, doublecross, leaving behind just a hollow soul to welcome a few bullets from the dark.What elevates it first is how effectively everything fits. Siodmak may never be celebrated next to Hitchcock, but he was a master craftsman in his niche. Lancaster is just unselfaware enough to fool us—we don't know how much of the intricately naive character he plays is an actor job and how much the actor himself. The girl is pretty and desperate and the villain scummy enough.The heist is ordinary enough for this day, but pretty excellent for then. It bookends the film and inbetween we have the essential matter of noir.Hallucinative throwback to previous life. We're presumed, as usual, to take it at face value as things that happened, but we know better. It's too rich to ignore. Remember, it's all being recalled as he drives to the heist, anxious, unsure. From the heist on, he blacks out twice. The heist itself is rendered with smoke and confusion, mirroring the betrayal. Later he's incapacitated in a hospital bed, fearful of a gunman paying him a visit.This is Chandleresque, and noir in general. The losing of world and coming back to, coming and going. The timeline starts with him returning to LA after years of doing odd jobs around the country, looking for the girl he was married to but didn't work out. It's all something being revisited in the first place. But the greatest thing is how all that is melded into places, memorable, marvelous places around LA. In the drugstore, inviting her to an early morning swim the other day, and her framed in the door with street traffic behind. His looking at her unobserved as she crosses a street to get a cab. The meeting house at the old Bunker Hill, with a windowview of the trains going up and down. Here's a film that's outwardbound, looking out to vibrant life.To the end, we're unsure if the gang was really going to betray him at the heist, if the girl was going to disappear with the money, or if it was all illusion and chaos thrown by the gods.Noir Meter: 3/4

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Krys P

This movie is certainly a very interesting movie. For one thing you don't know what's going to happen next because the characters are in a situation that can lead to a very nice and wealthy life, or death. The main male character in the movie came back home to see his family and he found the woman he loved and fell in love with her again. However, she was not for his to have because another man, who was a very dangerous man, had his hold on her. This only made him want her more and after finding out she was being abused he was angry and wanted her to come away with him. However the dangerous man has connections so in order for her to be free, the main lead character in the movie comes up with a plan to get close before having the chance to run off with him.There was only one way in which this movie could end, especially since the leading female only wanted the money and not really the love that the leading male character offered. Although this movie was interesting, if you do not like sad endings I would not recommend it to you.

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