Criss Cross
With Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea.
US, 1949, 35mm, black & white, 88 min.
Print source: Universal
Reunited with the great noir visionary and The Killers director Robert Siodmak, Lancaster returned to his first iconic role as a hapless yet willing victim, although now buffeted by even crueler tides of masochism, fatalism and callousness than their earlier film. The dark pleasures of Criss Cross that lie in its tightly coiled and sinisterly elaborate heist narrative and in the stabs of cruel humor inflicted by Daniel Fuchs' crackling dialogue are surpassed only by the sneering jester-like villain played by the always extraordinary Dan Duryea. Criss Cross is celebrated today as an elegiac documentary of sorts thanks to its remarkable location shooting in the now lost world of the decrepit Bunker Hill neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles which was shortly afterwards destroyed in the name of "urban renewal.”
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Sweet Smell of Success
Brute Force
The Rose Tattoo
The Crimson Pirate
Ulzana's Raid
Conversation Piece
From Here to Eternity
Twilight’s Last Gleaming
I Walk Alone
The Leopard
The Killers
Atlantic City
Criss Cross
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
The Train
Vera Cruz
The Swimmer
Run Silent Run Deep
A Child Is Waiting
Judgment at Nuremberg
