Grease Monkey’s
Sonata-Mickey Rooney’s “Quicksand” (1950)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Film Critic Emeritus
Sam Lowell
[This is a DVD that I
found of all places in a “for sale” bin of discontinued material at the
Cambridge Public Library several weeks ago. This while my transition to
emeritus and the ending of the grind of film reviewing under deadlines and
Sandy Salmon my replacement on the day to day work was in progress. I had
offered the film for Sandy to review knowing (and hoping) from long friendship
and competition (mostly friendly as is the case among most film reviewers
outside of New York City) that he didn’t give what we called in the old
neighborhood where I grew up a “rat’s ass” about reviewing a 1950s film noir.
So here I am again in the saddle for a minute.)
Quicksand, starring
Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Peter Lorre, Barbara Bates, directed by Irving
Pichel yet another Hollywood figure blacklisted in the red scare Cold War night
when the powers- to-be in Tinsel-town and their cowardly hangers-on took a dive
on funny little things like constitutional rights-and peoples’ livelihoods,
yeah I am on my soapbox again, 1950
Forgot the film noir
aspect of the film under review, Mickey Rooney’s Quicksand, although only now is this minor classic noir and
probably Mickey’s best performance against type (he spent his early career as
the “ah, shucks” cinematic version of Andy Hardy of that classic series of
young adult books) being recognized as such. This plotline is strictly from
Sister Cecelia’s, maybe Sister Mary Rose’s, or maybe Sister Delores’, hell,
maybe all of them, lessons from Sunday school at old Saint Stephen’s Roman
Catholic Church in my old home town. The lesson: once you go down the slippery
slope of sin (and probably crime as they were probably the same thing in their
imaginations) then there is a serious rollover effect, serious consequences.
Yeah, and obviously Mickey’s character Danny, the lowly grease monkey, you
know, auto mechanic either didn’t pay attention or was absent those Sundays
when whoever was running the Sunday school operation where he worshipped was
holding forth about that very prospect. No question, he uncorked every possible
evil as he went down the road to perdition.
Funny from a first look
at Danny he didn’t look like a guy who would wind up doing from one to ten in
some California penal colony once the dust settled. But then you didn’t know
then what steered him down the garden path. Of course then we didn’t know that
he would run smack daub into a low rent femme fatale, Vera, played by Jeanne
Cagney, who was serving them off the arm at a hash house where the local grease
monkeys filled their lunch buckets and he made the fatal mistake of dating her
up (a mistake as well since she was too tall for him, maybe too blond as well).
Once you know all he was doing was trying to move might and main to get her
down among the downy billows then all his fevered actions made a kind of
off-hand sense as every guy, including this reviewer, has had first-hand
experience with if he goes for the femmes. (Frankly this Vera didn’t have the
look of steam-infested career waitress, looked more like a bar girl or a roper
on a scam but you never know what has a gal serving them off the arm when she
is down on her luck, on her uppers).
Okay here is what the
slippery slope looked like if you follow along (and suspend disbelief as well).
It seemed after making that hot date for that very night Danny was cash-shy,
needed some dough to carry some weight with Vera. Everybody was tapped out so,
and remember, this is where he falls down, gets ready to take the big step-off
if he doesn’t catch a break, he grabbed a measly twenty buck from the skinflint
larcenous auto shop boss’s till. Just an overnight loan. No problem because
some guy who owned him more than twenty would cover him the next day and that
hot date would be worth it he could tell. Problem: the boss’s accountant showed
up early the next day for some other reason so he would need to cover the
twenty bucks fast. He can’t get the dough to cover so naturally he gets the
fever-driven bright idea that if he goes and buys an expensive watch on credit for
a hundred bucks (remember this is before cash-back credit cards could have
saved his butt even if they were charging usurious rates) and then hocked it
for thirty bucks.
That idea worked well
enough for Danny in the short term, got him a reprieve from the boss’s
accountant although just barely and with a very jaundiced eye but then the next
hurdle showed up at the garage-the dreaded “repo” man. Seems that in California
in those days you didn’t actually own, couldn’t own, an item on credit until it
was fully paid for, now too if I am not mistaken. The repo man gave him twenty
four hours to ante up the C-note or he was going to stir for grand larceny.
What to do, desperately what to do since a hundred bucks was way out of his
league on such short notice. Simple, our Danny boy bops a drunk carrying plenty
of dough on the head in darkened parking lot (let’s call that one assault and
battery in the night time and armed robbery, okay and you get an idea that
Danny’s wheels have gotten well off the track). He is in the clear now, his
miseries are over as he handed the repo man his blood piece.
Of course Danny is just
a misbegotten grease monkey and not some kind of career criminal so when he
flashes fifty dollar bills Vera’s way she knows he is the guy who bopped the
well-known drunk. Worse, the guy she used to work for at the local penny arcade
who seemingly still has a thing for her, Nick, a seedy guy no question, played
by the lovely Peter Lorre, knows he grabbed the dough. Has the handkerchief he
used as a mask doing the robbery. Nick’s price for keeping quiet-a new car from
the auto shop. Or else.
There’s more, believe
there is more in this Dante-like descend into hell. Danny grabs the car alright
and thinks he is back on easy street and can now enjoy his new honey in quiet,
maybe get under the sheets with her finally. Nope, that larcenous auto shop
boss has his own scam. He accused Danny of stealing the car (he also accused
others in the shop of the same crime in order to blackmail them). His price for
keeping quiet three thou for a two thousand blue book car. Jesus. That is where
the quick-thinking hustling Vera comes in to save his bacon, maybe. Seems that
Nick besides running that seaside arcade does some business in cashing checks
for guys-a low rent operation that is still with us unfortunately. She knows
where Nick keeps the dough and it is not in a bank. So Danny goes and grabs the
dough, hey who would have thought, thirty-six hundred. Now he is on easy street
and can get back to the serious business of running around with that femme
Vera.
Forget it. Vera, who was
a drifter from hunger just like Danny, had her big eyes on a mink coat and
while Danny was off doing something she bought the coat for the cash she was
holding for him. Eighteen hundred bucks, her half of the heist according to her
thinking, and not a bad price when you think about in the days when women
craved mink and it wasn’t politically incorrect, very politically incorrect to
wear fur. Danny went crazy and finally saw she was little more than a bent
whore. But that left Danny short with his boss. He went to the boss with his
eighteen hundred-take it or leave it. The boss took it naturally since he was a
larcenous character. Except that was a stall-he was holding out for three thou
and was calling the coppers when Danny freaked out and strangled him. Murder,
one, the big step off at the Q no doubt. Grabbed his gun too on the way out
knowing he was nothing but a desperado now, an outlaw. All for a twenty buck
deal to go around with a floozy.
Things looked grim, very
grim as he was going on the lam to Mexico, or someplace very far away from
California. This is where we get a little sneak redemption. See Danny had
thrown over a nice girl, Helen, played by Barbara Bates, who would have been
right up his alley if he was Andy Hardy but he had been in throes to that damn
femme. The thing was this Helen was still carrying the torch for him, carrying
that flame despite knowing that he was in a heck of a lot of trouble. Yeah,
true love which he finally realizes he could have, should have held onto for
dear life. She would share his fate whatever happened. Some people are like
that, thankfully, thankfully for Danny. He tried to talk her out of going with
him but no use. As they try to blow town his damn automobile blows a gasket. So
he is back in the bright idea business. He, they will, at gunpoint stop a car
on the highway and force the driver to take them away to Mexico. So add on
hijacking, kidnapping and who knows what else to the total. And who knows what
Helen will get for being his sidekick on this part of the descent.
Then Danny, Helen draw a
convenient little break. The guy they kidnapped was a non-plussed lawyer who
asked for the whole story. Asked as well whether that auto shop boss was really
dead which would have been a tough dollar to get around for what started out as
a twenty dollar petty larceny case. As it turned out that auto shop boss was
not dead but had just been unconscious. Free, free at last. Well not quite.
There was too much of a mess to get him off scot-free so he would be doing that
one to ten. Guess who will be waiting for him coming out stir? But wouldn’t
Danny have been better off having listened to Sister Cecelia, Sister Mary Rose,
Sister Delores, hell, maybe all three of them, about the slippery slope of sin.
If you are a noir fan and can find this one take a look. A hidden gem of a
film.
