This is not film noir and it is nor much of a crime drama, either It is just a waste of time for a large cast of fine B-movie character actors, most of them miscast.
Milburn Stone is an unfriendly Catholic priest, Vic Perrin is an alcoholic doctor, Lee Aaakers (the unappealing "Rusty" from the soul-less 1950s version of Rin-Tin-Tin) is a fat kid with a loud mouth, Frank Ferguson is a spineless police inspector, and Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick) is a cowardly newspaper reporter. The large cast of character actors, all wearing suits and fedoras, also includes William Schallert, Ray Bennett, Franklyn Farnum, and Simon Scott, most of whom had better small parts in TV series like "Perry Mason," "Bonanza," and "The Twilight Zone." There is a whole lot of hostage-taking, but everyone swaps clothes and ends up dressed about the same and because there is very little dialogue and few facial closeups, when the shooting starts, which it does early on, i could not tell tell the actors apart and there are so many fatalities, it was impossible to know or care who lived or or how they died.
As for the ostensible leads, well, Peter Graves is a psycho and Edward G. Robinson is way too old to reprise his role as Rocco.
Jean Parker (better known as Elizabeth March in "Little Women") is the only decent actor in the bunch. Everyone else is on a kill rampage or they get killed shortly after mouthing a variation on the same repetitious monologue about wanting to live as long as they can.
If you want to see lots of killing, watch Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" -- at least you will get to know the characters before they get shot up.
This one is a loser. I gave it three stars rather than one only because there as a bit of cool 1950s documentary-style B-Unit footage of cars, semi-trailer trucks, ambulances, and firemen with ladders interspersed throughout.
Spoiler: Pretty much everyone ends up dead.
Milburn Stone is an unfriendly Catholic priest, Vic Perrin is an alcoholic doctor, Lee Aaakers (the unappealing "Rusty" from the soul-less 1950s version of Rin-Tin-Tin) is a fat kid with a loud mouth, Frank Ferguson is a spineless police inspector, and Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick) is a cowardly newspaper reporter. The large cast of character actors, all wearing suits and fedoras, also includes William Schallert, Ray Bennett, Franklyn Farnum, and Simon Scott, most of whom had better small parts in TV series like "Perry Mason," "Bonanza," and "The Twilight Zone." There is a whole lot of hostage-taking, but everyone swaps clothes and ends up dressed about the same and because there is very little dialogue and few facial closeups, when the shooting starts, which it does early on, i could not tell tell the actors apart and there are so many fatalities, it was impossible to know or care who lived or or how they died.
As for the ostensible leads, well, Peter Graves is a psycho and Edward G. Robinson is way too old to reprise his role as Rocco.
Jean Parker (better known as Elizabeth March in "Little Women") is the only decent actor in the bunch. Everyone else is on a kill rampage or they get killed shortly after mouthing a variation on the same repetitious monologue about wanting to live as long as they can.
If you want to see lots of killing, watch Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" -- at least you will get to know the characters before they get shot up.
This one is a loser. I gave it three stars rather than one only because there as a bit of cool 1950s documentary-style B-Unit footage of cars, semi-trailer trucks, ambulances, and firemen with ladders interspersed throughout.
Spoiler: Pretty much everyone ends up dead.