Thursday, 18 February 2016

Gangster Story (1959)


The only film Walter Matthau ever directed. Plotting is solid (there’s a clever bank heist sequence that's screaming out to be re-enacted by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney). Matthau’s performance is charismatic as ever, albeit uncharacteristically low-key. Love interest, a foxy librarian willing to take a blind chance on a hood, is played by Matthau’s wife, Carol Grace, ‘the inspiration for Holly Golightly’ (or so I’m told). The editing is by Radley Metzger, the blue movie maverick behind The Opening of Misty Beethoven. Overall assessment: a lean noir in the Gil Brewer, Day Keene, Jim Thompson tradition hampered by a glaringly tight budget.


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