The Burglar

My Dad, William G. Wilson (not sure if you list him as Bob) filmed many of the shots in the Burglar. I remember seeing it with my folks. Dad also had the bit part as the TV director who says "You're On..." to newscaster John Facenda. Facenda, a Philadelphia legend, is best known as the voice of NFL Films which was born in Philadelphia. Strangely, Lou Kellman created TeleSports Digest which covered college and pro football (as well as other sports) before NFL Films. It's sad when when one searches for this film you get Whoopie's title. This film is fun to watch and my VHS is almost dead. Would appreciate hearing from anyone who knows where to get a legit copy. Thanks Bill Wilson

For a chance to look at Atlantic City in the Fifties before the casinos moved in The Burglar is the film for you. Dan Duryea stars in this small B film from Columbia as a professional burglar looking to make a big score with a necklace robbed from a fake spiritualist.

Duryea's team consists of Peter Capell jewelry expert, Mickey Shaughnessy muscle and hormones, and Jayne Mansfield who gives his hormones their exercise. Jayne's kind of a legacy for Duryea, if you can believe he thinks of her as kind of a kid sister. Duryea was raised by Jayne's father who was also a burglar and taught him the trade.

The robbery goes, but Duryea is spotted by cop Stewart Bradley who's on the take. So he has real police as well as this crooked one looking to get in on the score.

You'll note the similarities between The Burglar and The Asphalt Jungle. Both Duryea here and Sterling Hayden in the John Huston classic seem to be drawn inexorably to disaster. The difference is that Huston had that MGM shine to his film and this is a routine B film that's a cut above average.

Usually when a film is held up for a couple of years for release that spells problems. But The Burglar shot in 1955 and released in 1957 is moody and atmospheric and a nifty noir feature. Jayne Mansfield gets some competition in the sex pot department from Martha Vickers best remembered as Lauren Bacall's psychotic sister in The Big Sleep. She's working with Bradley who's working on Mansfield. All I can say is nice work if you can get it.

Around this time there was an attempt to make a lead of Dan Duryea, but he never really transitioned into that category. But The Burglar represents a fine bit of work from him and the rest of the cast.

A showy medium has a set of fancy jewels. Dan Duryea, THE BURGLAR, intends to steal them with the help of gang member Jayne Mansfield. Will the stresses and strains of the criminal lifestyle wreck their lives, or will the gang finally make the big score that will let them all retire?

This is one of those movies, following in the wake of the Asphalt Jungle, that shows how the tiny character flaws of the criminals involved in a caper all work to mess up their enterprise. If you like the genre, you'll like this. If you are not a noir/crime movie enthusiast, you might determine that all this seems pretty derivative from better movies. The director has definitely seen his Orson Welles movies (Citizen Kane and Lady from Shanghai are sampled here), but he only has a B-movie plot to drive the action. Later in the movie, this becomes a problem when the mechanics of inevitable doom require Duryea to show an implausible lack of judgment.

Nevertheless, Dan Duryea, who plays his role without an ounce of his usual scuzzy smarm, responds quite well to being cast somewhat against type. Jayne Mansfield, who had not yet developed her inflatable sex doll persona (this movie was shot well before Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?), does well with a fairly nuanced part that makes use of her looks, but does not require her to be either stupid or sleazy. The movie, when not being overly showy with its visuals, gets in some great location shooting in both Philadlphia and Atlantic City.

This is worth seeing, if you like crime movies. But you will get the feeling there was a lot of potential that went unfulfilled here.

Dan Duryea & Jayne Mansfield star in this film noir from 1957. A lengthy jewel heist is at the core of this caper as its pulled off at the film's start w/the remainder of the film having the thieves wait for the hand-off so they can get paid. Mansfield, Duryea's half sister, is sent away while they wait where she meets a guy & carries on a mini romance while Duryea does the same w/a woman, played by Martha Vickers, but what the thieves don't know is that they're being played from both ends leading up to a taut but satisfying conclusion. Made almost w/a European sensibility of action & release (the long waiting period that takes up the bulk of the narrative), this film's plot has a weird time signature to it & it works giving Duryea a good part to sink his teeth into (he usually favors the cackling villain roles) where he's at the end of his rope & suffers for it. Mansfield (mother of Law & Order: SVU's Mariska Hartigay) shows she's more than a pretty face giving nuance & detail to her small but pivotal role.

All the characters seem believable, if occasionally overwrought, and Mansfield seems refreshingly like a human being. Many interesting edits keep up the pacing, and the angles are rarely less than exceptional. Easy to see why Marty Scorsese likes this one, and so do we.