Criss Cross

8/27/2017

from filmnoiroftheweek.com I always find the music in film noir interesting. Unlike self-conscious noirs like Farewell, My Lovely and Body Heat, most noir soundtracks are orchestral – not jazz. The slow wailing saxophone over a Robert Mitchum voice-over can be found in noir parodies like the Guy Noir segments of A Prairie Home Companion. Strangely enough, that kind of music track is never actually heard in classic film noir. With some exceptions (Odds Against Tomorrow, for example) jazz and other forms of popular American music is usually heard only when it's performed on screen and not in the background or over opening credits. Music performed on screen in noir can be put into two categories. First, there's the tunes belted out by sexy femme fatales in glamorous night clubs. Often t

6/19/2019

I should have been a better friend. I shoulda stopped you. Criss Cross is directed by Robert Siodmak and adapted by Daniel Fuchs from Don Tracy's novel. It stars Burt Lancaster, Yvonne de Carlo, Dan Duryea and Stephen McNally. Music is scored by Miklós Rózsa and cinematography is by Franz Planer. Steve Thompson (Lancaster) and old flame Anna (de Carlo) begin to rekindle their love, much to the dismay of those closest to Steve. She's now unhappily married to mobster Slim Dundee (Duryea), they plan to run away together but Slim is apparently getting wise to their affair. When the two are caught together by Slim, Steve quickly concocts a story that they were plotting an armoured-truck robbery that he wants Dundee to be involved in. Slim notes it's near impossible, but with Steve working

2/19/2026

“Steve” (Burt Lancaster) is quite a decent cove, but he has an Achilles heel. His ex-wife “Anna” (Yvonne De Carlo) is a manipulative creature who knows that she has him around her little finger. His hopes of some sort of reconciliation are dashed when he discovers that she has married local kingpin “Slim” (Dan Duryea). Increasingly desperate, he concocts a cunning plan to raise enough cash to lure her away from him, but along the way earns an enmity that he and, for that matter, she are ill-equipped to deal with. Though Lancaster takes top billing, I felt it was De Carlo who stole the show here as a truly malevolent and selfish character and Duryea and her have a toxic sort of chemistry that works really quite well as the plot thickens and the besotted “Steve” becomes more malleable. Aside