Purely Joyful Movie!

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

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

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Director Paul Wenkos' first film "The Burglar" (1957) was based on the David Goodis novel of the same name, and Goodis penned the screenplay, too. This grim, gritty, black & white suspense thriller starts out strongly but then degenerates into a lackluster crime-doesn't-pay yarn. A gang of thieves break into a wealthy spiritualist's mansion in Philadelphia late one evening and steals a priceless necklace. The thief who enters the second floor of the mansion to crack a wall safe and make away with the goods is Nate Harbin (Dan Duryea of "Black Bart"), the kind of sort of leader of a gang of two other hoodlums—Baylock (Peter Capell of "Son of Hitler") and Dohmer (Mickey Shaughnessy of "From Here to Eternity")—and a young woman Gladden (Jayne Mansfield of "Female Jungle") who he has known all his life. Ironically, Nate and Gladden were orphans both raised by a compassionate thief, Gerald (one-time-only actor Sam Elber) who has made Nate swear that he will always look after Gladden. Nate sends Gladden in to case the place, and Sister Sara (Phoebe Mackay of "Splendor in the Grass") gives her the grand tour. The night that the guys went to Sister Sara's mansion, they parked their jalopy along the highway. Two uniformed officers in a prowl car stop to check out the abandoned vehicle. Fearless Nate pauses in the middle of cracking the safe, leaves the premises, and walks back to the two cops standing by his ride. Nate complains audaciously about the shortage of mechanics up at that time in the evening. The two cops believe Nate's story about his car stalling out, so they let him sleep in the back seat until dawn. Stealthily, Nate returns to the mansion, opens the safe, and snatches the diamonds. Unfortunately, after he rifled the wall safe, Nate forgets to close it. Later, not long after Nate and his accomplices have left, Sister Sara discovers that she has been burglarized because Nate left the safe door ajar.Worse, unknown to Nate, one of the two policemen who questioned him about his car parked along the side of the highway is the corrupt cop who takes the necklace off his hands. At one point, Nate and his accomplices pull up stakes and head to Atlantic City. Charlie(Stewart Bradley) is hot on their trail, and he has been dating Gladden secretly before the guys arrive. Things get really tense after Nate learns about Charlie and Gladden.Wendkos confines this thriller to a mere 90 minutes, but the momentum breaks down after the initial robbery and the period when the thieves lay low to avoid arrest. Wendkos's "The Burglar" inspired director Henri Verneuil's French remake with Omar Sharif and Jean-Paul Belmondo entitled "The Burglars." "The Burglar" suffers from a bummer of an ending, while it's remake is a lot more fun.

As others have noted, the script is not well written.It's a good example of what can happen when a novelist adapts his own work for the screen. When it comes to editing, authors just hate having to kill their darlings, and so it was with Goodis leaving in those numerous dreadfully long monologues, which might be acceptable in a novel where the plot plays out in the reader's mind, but are inexcusable in a movie where the rule is 'show it, don't tell it'.Unless dialog moves the plot forward it needs to be excised.Goodis gave the director some real challenges, and what we end up with are characters not able to look at each other but instead stare without emotion while they babble on interminably about themselves, stopping the action dead.Otherwise the plot, apart from some logic holes, is a good one, and typical of Goodis.Casting is another problem for me. Mansfield's acting is simply atrocious. Durea is a fine performer but having to act like and say that his age is 36, when in fact he is and looks almost 50, jars.Peter Capell chews the scenery trying to depict Baylock.Stewart Bradley (Charlie) personifies evil. I enjoyed his performance. I think Goodis writes best when he's writing for the villain of the piece.

My Dad, William G. Wilson (not sure if you list him as Bob) filmed many of the shots in the Burglar. I remember seeing it with my folks. Dad also had the bit part as the TV director who says "You're On..." to newscaster John Facenda. Facenda, a Philadelphia legend, is best known as the voice of NFL Films which was born in Philadelphia. Strangely, Lou Kellman created TeleSports Digest which covered college and pro football (as well as other sports) before NFL Films. It's sad when when one searches for this film you get Whoopie's title. This film is fun to watch and my VHS is almost dead. Would appreciate hearing from anyone who knows where to get a legit copy. Thanks Bill Wilson

This is one of those extravagantly stylized late-period noirs, one which palpitates with flamboyant cinematic technique. It belongs in the same club as those other exaggerated, self-consciously arty noirs of the late 50s/early 60s, like Touch of Evil, Kiss Me Deadly, Blast of Silence and Sam Fuller's contemporaneous contributions to the genre. Wendkos directs like a recent A+ film school graduate showing off every Hitchcock and Welles trick he's learned -- there are many stunning edits (he is also credited as the film's editor), several strikingly composed shots, and a suitably seedy background (the fact that the crooks' hideout is right next to a railway line full of speeding streamliners is a boon). At the same time, he toes the studio line of narrative clarity and cohesive action scenes enough to make this suitable viewing for the non-buff (one can see why he spent most of his years in television, but at the same time could dazzle with over-the-top effects in The Mephisto Waltz.) Fans of Atlantic City's Steel Pier are in for a treat in the film's climax (which owes a bit too much to The Lady from Shanghai) -- we even get to see the diving horse. But notably, we also see the soggy marshes that border the city and reflect the protagonists' own situational quagmire. It may not have the integrity of the more subtly devastating noirs of the Siodmak 40s, but it has its own postmodern tradition to uphold. It's worth picking this one up even on the third-generation dupes that are now in circulation; a wide-screen dvd restoration is definitely in order.