Violent Saturday March 7, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s , trackback
Richard Fleischer’s 1955 CinemaScope extravaganza Violent Saturday isn’t the small town film noir I was led to believe, but its dual climaxes certainly live up to the noir-appropriate title. I might more aptly characterize the film as some odd noir-melodrama hybrid, Stahl or Sirk via John Sturges maybe. Violent Saturday reminded me especially of Bad Day at Black Rock without the anxiety. In the Sturges film Spencer Tracy is an outsider who arrives to a suspicious town while trying to find a particular man. Fleischer’s movie also depicts outsiders, but they’re met only with smiles and courtesy despite being men with criminal intentions. Visually, the full-color dusty and dirt-filled landscapes of the two films are similar, but Violent Saturday has the distinction of including a much more inviting and active small town atmosphere. Yet, the Fleischer movie often gets a film noir label while Bad Day at Black Rock rarely does? Seems inconsistent to me. If anything, Sturges created a much more traditional noir, save for the color photography, than what we see in Violent Saturday.
For one thing, there is no true protagonist in Fleischer’s movie. Victor Mature gets top billing, but I think it’s a stretch to call his role or storyline the main thread in the film. He’s a mine engineer whose young son expresses disappointment that his best friend’s father has a war medal from Iwo Jima while Mature has merely a plaque of recognition. Macho notions of he-man masculinity and heroism require a somewhat predictable and safe ending. The idea that Mature can only make his son proud once he’s proven his “bravery” reeks of justifications for violence and I find it to be highly problematic. I’d like to think it’s just a misguided sign of the times, as outdated as the flowery dress his wife greets him in and the poptop beer can eagerly delivered by the maid as soon as he gets home from work.
The men Mature must somehow foil, for his son, his town, and, apparently, his manhood, are a trio of bank robbers who enter the small hamlet of Bradenville with their eyes set on a vault full of cash. Stephen McNally plays the leader and J. Carrol Naish is a bow-tied accomplice. Stealing the film in a gunmetal gray suit and hat is Lee Marvin as the third gang member. Marvin makes nearly every movie he’s in his own, but the scenes without the actor in Violent Saturday particularly suffer for his absence. Whether it’s stepping on a little kid’s hand after dropping his ever-present sinus inhaler or restlessly yammering on about his ex-wife to McNally in the middle of the night prior to the robbery, Marvin just keeps things more interesting when he’s around. The film slides into its turgid melodrama phase in the interim, but survives by never taking itself too seriously.
The audacity of Fleischer’s direction and Sydney Boehm’s screenplay now seems novel and almost precious. Boehm, whose other screenwriting credits include more typical noir fare like Anthony Mann’s Side Street and Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat, was working from a novel by William L. Heath. Without knowing anything about Heath or the source material, I can only assume that Boehm either emphasized the seemingly paradoxical crime thriller/melodrama aspect from the novel or that he put his own slant on the robbery aspect. Regardless, it makes for a somewhat strange animal that’s ultimately taken new places by Fleischer. All but the robbers (setting aside Marvin’s hinted neuroses) are given significant problems at home that are essentially relieved by the bank robbery. The swift crash of the title makes most everyone’s lives a little easier, with the added bonus of brief excitement, and the bad guys get their production code mandated consequence.
Fleischer takes us along for the ride with often beautiful blue skies, chirping birds and an altogether idyllic backdrop. Even the trio of criminals aren’t exactly menacing until Marvin spins around to fire a couple of convenient bullets during the robbery. The fact that one victim dies, setting up the opportunity for her husband to break off an unhappy marriage without the financial trappings of divorce, and the other (Tommy Noonan) turns out just fine enough to confess his near-stalking and peeping of his nurse (Virginia Leith) is like some kind of deranged male fantasy. The drenched-in-scotch Richard Egan should just barely eke out the time to wipe his tears away before scooping up Leith and keeping that suitcase nice and packed. Maybe it’s my cynicism, but the whole thing turns out mighty nicely for Egan.
Aside from the suds and tears (and well-orchestrated laughs thrown in for levity), it’s the idea of violence as some kind of therapeutic release that I found most intriguing about the film. As I said, the robbery becomes a magic key for the spectators and allows them to move on from the melodrama in their lives. It also gives Mature the heroism he missed in the war. We see humble reactions from the character, but no real remorse or psychological consequences. Then there’s the utterly peaceful Amish family man and farmer played by Ernest Borgnine. Very early on, the audience gets a lesson on the ways of the Amish when Naish encounters a family on a train. Later on, the robbers choose Borgnine’s farm as the place to cool off after the robbery. The Amish are portrayed as almost saintly and non-violent to a fault, espousing the message that God will watch over them. But when it comes time to throw a pitchfork into Lee Marvin’s back, it’s Borgnine, not God, who’s the hurler.
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