Rent Drive a Crooked Road (1954)

An engaging slow ride in the noir fast lane - Drive a Crooked Road review by KW

Mickey Rooney is Eddie Shannon, shy and mild-mannered car mechanic and wannabe racing driver. Eddie is no hit with the ladies until Barbara Matthews turns up to make his heart go faster than a Grand Prix winner. She's setting him up though, for she has friends planning a bank robbery and they need a fast driver. Whether he likes it or not, Eddie is taking a trip down the fast lane....

Mickey Rooney gives a tremendous, understated performance in this movie, which is in Volume 1 of Indicator's Columbia Noir box set series. The film is well-written by Blake Edwards with none of the jokes that featured in his later movies but plenty of the Malibu locations that did. The slow burn allows the audience to get to know Eddie - his life is simple, he deserves more but it's a dark night of fast cars and gunplay and this is a film noir so don't count on a jolly song and dance routine with Judy Garland type of ending. Those days were over!

Extras on the blu-ray disc include an introduction by Martin Scorsese, audio interview with Mickey Rooney, film commentary, a bizarre showbiz featrette with Mickey Rooney and an even more bizarre Three Stooges short in which they play airforce car mechanics who inadvertently become spies after accidentally hiding in a bomb which is then dropped on Nazi Germany. In other words, the main feature is the real draw.