I love it when I come across these underappreciated noir gems. This one has Gene Nelson cast against type as a married ex-con who's sought out by a trio of criminals after they pull off a gas station heist and one of them gets shot. Because he's trying to go straight, Steve Lacey (Nelson) resists attempts by Doc Penny (Ted de Corsia) to join his gang for a big-time bank job, but gets sucked in when his wife (Phyllis Kirk) becomes a pawn in the bad guy's plans. Riding hard to bust the outlaws who robbed the gas station and killed a cop is police detective Lieutenant Sims, Sterling Hayden in a portrayal that sticks in your craw because he's as nasty as any of the baddies.
This is the second time in as many days that I've caught Charles Bronson in an unexpected film appearance. He had an uncredited bit part in the 1953 film, "The Clown" as a dice player who took Red Skelton for a couple hundred bucks. His role here is a bit meatier as one of the hoods in Doc Penny's bunch, and curiously, he's not shown being taken down when Nelson's crew gets the drop on the villains pulling off the ill-fated bank job. It's mentioned on the police scanner that all three, minus the driver Lacey were shot and killed, but only Doc Penny and a palooka named Zenner (Jim Hayward) are shown getting hit. But out of all the bad guys, it's the creepy looking guy Johnny you can't take your eyes off of. Remarkably portrayed in a low-key manner by Timothy Carey, you just know you wouldn't want to get on his bad side, which by the looks of it, was the only side he had.
Coming into the final stretch, it appears that with the rest of the gang accounted for, Lacey was going to go back to prison when Sims finally caught up with him. But in an unusual twist of events, Sims remarks on how he found a six word note in Lacey's medicine cabinet with the timing of the bank heist. It's the only time Sims came across as human, as he sets Lacey and wife Ellen on their way with a warning to play it straight if he's ever contacted by ex-jail birds again.
This is the second time in as many days that I've caught Charles Bronson in an unexpected film appearance. He had an uncredited bit part in the 1953 film, "The Clown" as a dice player who took Red Skelton for a couple hundred bucks. His role here is a bit meatier as one of the hoods in Doc Penny's bunch, and curiously, he's not shown being taken down when Nelson's crew gets the drop on the villains pulling off the ill-fated bank job. It's mentioned on the police scanner that all three, minus the driver Lacey were shot and killed, but only Doc Penny and a palooka named Zenner (Jim Hayward) are shown getting hit. But out of all the bad guys, it's the creepy looking guy Johnny you can't take your eyes off of. Remarkably portrayed in a low-key manner by Timothy Carey, you just know you wouldn't want to get on his bad side, which by the looks of it, was the only side he had.
Coming into the final stretch, it appears that with the rest of the gang accounted for, Lacey was going to go back to prison when Sims finally caught up with him. But in an unusual twist of events, Sims remarks on how he found a six word note in Lacey's medicine cabinet with the timing of the bank heist. It's the only time Sims came across as human, as he sets Lacey and wife Ellen on their way with a warning to play it straight if he's ever contacted by ex-jail birds again.