The Big Operator

Rooney in his best dramatic role. Mickey is a crooked union boss who will stop at nothing to get his way. The nonstop action includes strong arm union goons beating Mel Torme, then setting him on fire and dumping him on Mamie Van Dorens tree lawn. Fortunately the fire is put out in time, enabling him to lead the police to the bad guys hideout. I won't give the ending away, except to say there's plenty of bagpipe music. Must see to believe!!!

Modestly budgeted but surprisingly entertaining crime drama, with Mickey Rooney as a Jimmy Hoffa-style union boss ready to resort to gangland methods when a couple of honest union men see him in the company of a known gangster the night that a witness against Rooney in an upcoming crime investigation goes missing.

This film has a nice jazzy musical score, and some unexpected casting. Rooney is effective with an in-your-face performance as the ruthless union president. But equally effective, and a nice change of pace casting for him, too, is Steve Cochran, normally a screen tough guy, here playing a soft spoken decent family man who crosses paths with Rooney. Ray Danton is a cold blooded hood working for the union boss who not only throws someone into a cement mixer but sets another person on fire after dumping him out of a car.

Vampira, pretty much unrecognizable without her Vampira makeup, is a woman running a beatnik club, Mel Torme plays Cochran's fiery natured friend (Mel's not bad), and, the most unusual casting of all is, ready for this, Mamie Van Doren in a subdued performance as Cochran's homemaker wife. She still looks like bleached blonde Mamie, of course, but she's not half bad. Mamie as Donna Reed? See it to believe it.

The film has a protracted sequence is which Cochran, who is ready to give testimony against Rooney, is kidnapped and Rooney has goons working him over (Leo Gordon being one of them, yikes!) to try to get him to change his testimony. When Cochran refuses to cooperate, Rooney then resorts to nastier means to get his way.

The title's something of a misnomer since "The Big Operator" in question is none other than the diminutive Mickey Rooney. This Albert Zugsmith movie, which he produced in 1959, is a gangster flic about a mob-ruled union with Rooney as 'Little Joe', a corrupt union leader and it has a better than average supporting cast headed by Steve Cochran, (in a rare good-guy role), Mamie Van Doren, (miscast but coping as Cochran's sweet, blonde wife), Mel Torme, (good in a rare dramatic role), as well as Ray Danton and Jim Backus.

The plot's nothing new and, to be honest, the script is fairly ridiculous but it's reasonably well directed by Charles Haas, nicely shot in Cinemascope by Walter Castle and makes for an entertaining 90 minutes. Rooney drifts through it and you would hardly call what he does 'acting' but he was a star, all five foot two inches of him, a punk Little Caesar and he dominates the picture. It's certainly no classic and it's certainly no "Touch of Evil" but it's a good, tawdry genre picture and perfect drive-in fodder.

Mickey Rooney is the corrupt, fast-talking, deal-making head of the Union, up against a congressional investigation. He takes the Fifth when answering every question. When union member Mel Torme gets torched in front of his home, pal Steve Cochran is ready to testify, but Rooney kidnaps his son, has his enforcers beat up Cochran, and tell him that if he recasts on the witness chair, he'll see his son again.

Charles Haas is in charge of this tough movie, and his actors are cast against type and perform beautifully. Not only is Rooney terrific, but Mamie van Doren is very good, Torme is terrific, and performers like Charles Chaplin Junior and Jackie Coogan - he's a corrupt lawyer - demonstrate that good actors are good actors.

The movie turns a bit conventional in the end, and Van Alexander's blaring jazz score sometimes obscures what's going on, but this is a tough movie.

This violent gangster thriller shows how fast pacing can succeed in building tension despite several implausibilities in plotting and characterization. Mickey Rooney shows he could play a thoroughly nasty individual, but his Joe Braun comes over as little more than a caricature. Several incidents strain credibility, not least when one man is seen going up in flames, and is presumably killed, only to emerge later wearing a few strips of sticking plaster but otherwise OK. Despite these faults, the film remains eminently watchable. Steve Cochran gives one of the better performances as the hero.