Themes: Unlikely Criminals, Down on Their Luck, Nothing Goes Right
Main Cast: Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Barbara Bates, Peter Lorre, Taylor Holmes
Release Year: 1950
Country: US
Run Time: 79 minutes
Plot
Mickey Rooney, with his kid roles and musicals behind him, went for a major change of image in this harrowing film noir. He gives what many consider to be the best performance of his career as Danny Brady, a well-meaning grease monkey whose life is destroyed in less than a week. Danny finds himself short of cash when he's supposed to take out Vera (Jeanne Cagney), a waitress whom he's just met who works at a hash-house. He borrows 20 dollars from the cash register, planning on paying it back with 20 dollars that a buddy owes him the next day, but the friend doesn't turn up. To get the 20 dollars, he buys a 100-dollar watch on a payment plan and then hocks it for the 20 dollars, but a detective picks up on the purchase and threatens to have him jailed if he doesn't pay the full 100 dollars immediately; desperate to raise the money, he robs a drunken bar patron of his bill-fold. His money problems seemingly behind him, Danny takes Vera out with the extra cash, but gets into a fight with her former boss, Nick (Peter Lorre), who picks up a clue that Danny did the robbery. Nick pressures Danny to provide him with a new car (a hard-to-get commodity in 1950) from the garage where he works, in return for keeping quiet. Danny steals the car and turns it over to Nick, but he and Vera decide to get even by robbing Nick's safe that night -- now they've got 3,600 dollars, which they split. But Danny's boss, Mackey, tells him he knows who stole the car, and wants either the car back or the full value, or he'll turn Danny in to the police. Vera has already blown her share on a mink coat, and he goes back to Mackey with what he has, 1,800 dollars. Mackey takes it and proceeds to call the police. Danny attacks him and leaves him for dead. Danny goes on the run, convinced he's wanted for Mackey's murder. Danny runs into Helen (Barbara Bates), a nice girl that he was dating and then dumped, and they end up fleeing together, hijacking a car and holding an innocent man at gunpoint. Impending tragedy seems to loom up even larger when they cross paths with police officers on a manhunt. Realizing that Helen has been good to him, he ends up on the run alone, with a gun in hand, as the law closes in. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
Quicksand is one of the most harrowing examples of film noir ever made, and also one of the more fascinating social documents of its era. Mickey Rooney (who financed this film with Peter Lorre and saw both his and Lorre's shares of the profits stolen by their third partner) gives the best performance of his career as a well-meaning but not too bright schlub who finds himself sinking ever deeper into a maze of theft and assault, and even murder. Director Irving Pichel shows a fine eye for detail in both the performances and the action. Much of the movie was shot in actual locations on the sleazy Southern California amusement piers where it was set; additionally, the characters in the film, especially the men, act and talk like real guys, not characters in a movie -- the dialogue and the banter, and even the way they stand and interact with each other, all feels real and harsh. One gets a vivid sense of the texture of working-class life during that period, long enough after World War II for fun and games, and an easygoing approach to life, but with an underlying unease reflecting the era of Korea, the Red Scare, and the uncertainty lying just below the surface of American life. Indeed, the nature of the story and the dark, shadowy treatment of so much of the action seems to be an unsettling commentary on the fragility of the stability of life, made even more compelling by the accepted optimism of the era. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Emil Newman - Art Director, Irving Pichel - Director, Walter Thompson - Editor, Louis Gruenberg - Composer (Music Score), Emil Newman - Musical Direction/Supervision, Boris Leven - Production Designer, Lionel Lindon - Cinematographer, Mort Briskin - Producer, Robert Smith - Screenwriter
Quicksand (1950) is a United Artistsfilm noir starring Mickey Rooney and Peter Lorre in a story about a garage mechanic's descent into crime. The film has been described as "film noir in a teacup... a pretty nifty little picture" in which Rooney "cast himself against his Andy Hardy goody goody image."[1]
Young auto mechanic Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney) takes $20 from a cash register at work to go on a date with blonde femme fatale Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney). Brady intends to put the money back before it is missed, but the garage's bookkeeper shows up earlier than scheduled. As Brady scrambles to cover evidence of his petty theft, he fast finds himself drawn into an ever worsening "quicksand" of crime, each of his misdeeds more serious than the last.
His descent is sped along by his heartless and morally lacking boss Oren Mackay (Art Smith), and the seedy owner of a pinball arcade on Santa Monica Pier, Nick Dramoshag (Peter Lorre). Brady and Vera split when Vera purchases a mink coat with money Brady has stolen. Brady's still-loyal but unappreciated former girlfriend Helen (Barbara Bates) then reenters the scene and tries to woo him back. Later fleeing what he believes will be a murder charge, Brady carjacks a sedan which happens to be driven by a sympathetic lawyer (Taylor Holmes).
By movie's end Brady is back with his faithful girlfriend, who promises to wait for him whilst he spends the next few years of his life in prison. Cast includes Jimmie Dodd and Minerva Urecal. A young Jack Elam, later widely noted as a character actor in Westerns, appears in an uncredited speaking role.
Production
Rooney co-financed Quicksand with Peter Lorre but their shares of the profits were reportedly left unpaid by a third partner.[2] Most of the film was shot on location in Santa Monica, California, with a few exterior scenes at Santa Monica Pier. Swing era bandleader Red Nichols and His Five Pennies are seen and heard in a nightclub scene. A display box of Bit-O-Honey candy shown by a cash register soon after the film begins is an early example of product placement.[3]
Reception
Bruce Eder of Allmovie wrote Rooney "...gives what many consider to be the best performance of his career" and characterized Quicksand as "one of the more fascinating social documents of its era."[2] Fifty years after the film's first theatrical release DVD Savant noted, "the quasi-downbeat ending of Quicksand doesn't simply let him off the hook, [which] makes for an unusually mature ending."[1]
