Rent Criss Cross (1949)

Haunting classic noir. - Criss Cross review by Steve

Perhaps the most gorgeous looking low budget film ever made. Not just the gleaming photography of Franz Planer but the editing, lighting and set design. You could take a still from anywhere in Criss Cross and paste it into a book of photography to sum up the look of noir, and its melancholy beauty. Whether its decorative stars, its interiors in deep focus or the fantastic location shots of LA.

The film is a star vehicle for Burt Lancaster as an armoured car driver who has drifted back into LA to be sexually manipulated by his gorgeous ex-wife (Yvonne De Carlo) who is now planning to marry a gangster (Dan Duryea). The disconsolate, doomed Lancaster offers his services to Duryea as the inside man in a bank truck heist.

The film is mostly narrated in layers of flashback, and seems clearly influenced by Build My Gallows High, most particularly in pessimistic dialogue, the costumes/style of De Carlo and the gloomy, tainted romance of the two leads lost in the wrong turns on the lonely roads of film noir. This might not be quite the equal of Tourneur's classic, but may even exceed it in visual artistry.    

Inevitably, this sort of film doesn't end optimistically, but there are hints that America is moving out of a long period of austerity; De Carlo works in a prosperous department store and Lancaster literally carts bundles of money around... As ever with Robert Siodmak (like Planer, a refugee from German cinema), each scene is assembled with the care and expertise of a watchmaker. The film is so lovely to look at, it's a little bit heartbreaking.