What did you watch? The 1957 crime noir drama The Burglar.

This one stars Dan Duryea, whom we’ve seen before as a bad guy in Too Late For Tears and Scarlet Street. Here he leads a group of criminals, one of whom is Jayne Mansfield, the others are two creepy guys. The movie opens with Dan catching a newsreel at the movies, the newsreel is of a recently widowed spiritual leader who brags about the opulence she’s surrounded by and how much it didn’t cost her.

Jayne Mansfield stops by the widow’s mansion under the guise of someone making a donation and is given a tour, where she gets to case the place and also learns that the old lady watches the news for fifteen minutes on the first floor every night. Dan and the two creeps head over and once the local news broadcast starts, Dan makes his way up to the 2nd floor bedroom to work on the safe. The goons alert Dan to cops checking out their car, so Dan heads down and fakes a story that the car won’t start, and he’ll just sleep in it since the suspicious cops are also too lazy to give him a lift home.

After the cops leave, Dan heads back up to the 2nd floor of the mansion and opens the safe and the trio leave just in time for the widow to see the safe open. Having the camera view from the safe point of view as she walks back and forth brushing her teeth is a pretty nice touch. The police are called. Meanwhile, Dan & the creeps look at the fancy necklace that Dan stole, and then they all freak out over having such a difficult item to fence. Also, the creeps are creeps, and immediately take their anger and sexual frustration out on Jayne. Dan decides to send Jayne to Atlantic City while the three of them remain in the same small house together. Three unhinged criminals, driving each other crazy, good plan.

While in Atlantic City, Jayne meets someone whose face we never see. They spend some romantic time with each other, and with his back to us (…but not in a way you think, you perve). There is a reason for this, obviously. Meanwhile Dan is out grabbing a drink and a lovely lady (Martha Vickers) at the bar hits on him. He goes home with her and they learn about each other’s vaguely troubled pasts. He falls asleep and he wakes up and she’s not there, so he steps out and, from behind some trees, sees her talking to some guy WHOSE BACK IS FACING US (!!!!) about scamming Dan for the necklace he stole.

SO, Dan calls Jayne and tells her to stay put so he can rescue her. They are spotted a few times by cops and one of the creeps gets it. Dan and the remaining creep ditch the car and head to Atlantic City through the woods on foot. They find an abandoned house on the beach and hide out there, exhausted.

Dan heads to visit Jayne and sees THE MAN WITH THE BACK (!!!). We get a look – it’s one of the cops from the first reel, who checked out Dan’s car when Dan was robbing the mansion! Plot twist!

Things happen. The Man With The Back (the Cop) kills the other creep has Martha Vickers try to hold Dan at gunpoint while he (the Cop) goes to steal the necklace from Jayne. Dan escapes because Martha is tired of whatever she and the Cop have going on and wants to run away with Dan. (where will you go? You’re with a wanted criminal and the dragnet is closing in on him.) Dan and Jayne think they can hide out in a crowd at a water show at and amusement park, but the Cop finds them and once the crowd leaves he orders Jayne away so he can keep the jewels and shoot Dan.

What happens next? I’m trying to figure out what the purpose of this movie is – what’s the downfall of our lead and his chance to redeem himself for a noir crime caper? It’s just a dark movie, gang. Kind of unpleasant with an odd pace. It starts off quick, from introduction to their victim right to the heist. Even with the intervention from the cops, that all moves pretty quickly with some tension. From there, it’s just this meandering slow burn in their hideout while Dan tries to figure out what to do next.

I really thought that, with the theft from a beloved spiritual leader (it’s not really established that it’s a cult), that despite her outward appearance of a loving elderly lady preaching well being and good vibes, the burglars will be hounded by her followers, with her ordering brainwashed cult members to kill Dan and co., or something like that. I guess that’s where I thought it was going. Otherwise, why the setup, that this kindly lady had a valuable necklace she mused to have only paid $1 for. The facade would end once the cops leave after filling out the police report over a meaningless bauble – she turns around to her followers and demands blood! Would that be a better movie? Hollywood, call me!

We don’t see the widow cult leader again. Like I said, the movie kinda drags as the creeps sit around and overact over their dreams and desires. The movie picks up once Dan meets Martha, forcing him to risk their necks in public to rescue an oblivious Jayne (the backstory is that Dan was an orphan picked up by a master thief who dies on a job, and Dan promises to watch over the thief’s daughter, who grows up to be Jayne). Dan is oblivious to Jayne as well, as she’s in love with him, why couldn’t he just get a normal job and they get married and DUDE YOU COULD HAVE BEEN MARRIED TO JAYNE MANSFIELD.

Was it Noir? yes. Was it good? Meh. It was moody, it dragged in some places, it did get pretty tense, so the suspense was there. However, once Dan reaches Atlantic City, there’s a lot of back and forth between the hotel Jayne is staying at and the beach house, before the final showdown at the park that doesn’t give Dan many options to bargain or escape before the dragnet closes in on everyone.

Martha Vickers appeared in a lot of movies in the 40’s but not many in the 50’s, where she had a lot of guest roles in TV. She was in the adaptation of The Big Sleep and then 10 years later in another forgotten noir The Big Bluff, which the Coen Brothers throwback The Man Who Wasn’t There borrows from a little bit. Dan Duryea was a sneaky heavy in a lot of movies, including some covered here. Jayne Mansfield – do I have to tell you who that was? One of the blonde bombshells of the 50’s and 60’s. She was very talented and intelligent. I can’t summarize her career, she’s probably more well known herself than any movie she’s been in. She died in a car accident in 1967.