Criss Cross (1949)

I think I'm plagiarizing myself here but Burt Lancaster was and remains the king of being the only person in a room not having a good time.

Joe

Wow. That was bleak. I think this film f*cked Burt Lancaster up enough to play that wacked out role in The Swimmer. If you criss cross a criss crosser with a criss crosser that’s criss crossing you, you end up thinking you can traverse the Hollywood Hills by doing laps in…

DallasFrance

"I should've been a better friend. I should've stopped you. I should've grabbed you by the neck. I should've kicked your teeth in." In the cynical, cynical noir (that's French for BLACK, y'all) world of this movie where a good friend should have kicked your teeth in, you…

laird

There are no straight lines through a noir. “Criss Cross” happens all in the juncture points between them; where paths intersect, and send each other into incendiary blasts.  In director Robert Siodmak’s film, those endless lines are ones we all scratch ourselves;…

theriverjordan

Criss Cross is an attempt by Universal, Robert Siodmak, and Burt Lancaster to recapture the magic of The Killers, and while it works for several folks hereabouts, I find it a minor noir. The plot has some similarity to The Killers--a good man forced by circumstances to go…

noir1946

noir that stings like battery acid -- the poignant fluidity of siodmak's camera gets going, then stops at sudden intervals, mirroring the interrupted flow of memory, how moments are chopped up and race through your mind when in the pitch of anticipation, then the finale…

comrade_yui

I should have been a better friend. I shoulda stopped you. I shoulda grabbed you by the neck, I shoulda kicked your teeth in. -Det. Lt. Pete Ramirez Typical noir has the femme fatale show up at the protagonist's door, sometimes an ex, with the excuse of lust behind the…

🎃 Count DuLacula 🦇

Burt Lancaster is amazing. Yvonne DeCarlo is a revelation. Criss Cross is one of the best films noir. It ticks all the boxes, fate, a stupid man, a femme fatal, smoking, crime, a long flashback... now if only it had a shot with light coming through the blinds it would…

RetroHound

Anytime I am about to watch a film that has Burt Lancaster on the cast I know I am going to be in for an acting masterclass, this one was no different.  An armored truck driver named Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) and his ex-wife Anna (Yvonne de Carlo) conspire with the…

Gwaynee