Rating: 4/5
Anti-Criterion Challenge 2024 | 17/52 | Heist film, but the thing being stolen is someone’s heart
Anna and Steve meet in secret. Steve worries her husband will find out, but Anna has to see him. They go over their plan once more and where they’ll meet. Anna assures him it will finally be as it should have been: she and him from the beginning.
Back at the club, Slim Dundee notices Anna’s return and questions her intentions. Steve hides in plain sight. He pulls Dundee into an armored truck robbery. Like all schemes, however, it doesn’t go according to plan.
The film follows the double-crosses, betrayals, and cynical darkness that epitomizes film noir. Robert Siodmak received little love, but critics have reappraised his movies as the foundation of our cultural understanding of the genre.
The film follows that painful logic of wondering if you could have another shot with someone you loved. Time can erode the painful memories and distort the nice ones. Feelings seem permanent — yet here you are again, searching in the places that got you hurt.
Suddenly, here you are, in town with them. All the good feelings come flooding back. They’re with somebody else, but wasn’t what you had special enough? Didn’t it hurt you when they left? Is someone’s suffering necessary to retrieve what you lost? They might not want what you want. You might be the one getting hurt again.
Burt Lancaster is incredible as heartbroken and stupid — stupid in the most understandable of ways, sticking around long past when he should.
If you’ve seen noir, you know the beats — there are no happy endings or lucky people.