Sunday | November 29, 2015 5:00 pm

The Burglar

Screening on Film

Directed by Paul Wendkos.
With Dan Duryea, Jayne Mansfield, Martha Vickers.
US, 1957, 35mm, black & white, 90 min.
Print source: Swank Films

Fifties sex goddess Jayne Mansfield is the unwieldy object of desire, and deceit, in Paul Wendkos’ unusual and Orson Welles-inspired adaptation of hardboiled crime writer David Goodis’ eponymous thriller. Dan Duryea trembles with sweaty intensity as The Burglar, designing his most elaborate heist to rob a spiritualist of her famed jewels. A late, baroque film noir, The Burglar was the only film realized with an original screenplay by cult writer Goodis, who set the film firmly in the same Philadelphia neighborhoods from which he rarely wandered.