"Crashout" Review

 

by Daniel White

"Money is a lot like love; there's a dirty kind and a clean kind. No good comes out of the dirty kind!" Beverly Michaels doles out that piece of hard-earned wisdom to prison break escapee Arthur Kennedy in 1955's CRASHOUT. Amen, sister! Put together by some of the same gents who worked with Ida Lupino and her husband, Collier Young, the flick has a gritty feel, much like their forceful stuff.

William Bendix receives top-billing as the hardened con who orchestrates the title melee and he's great. Bendix could easily swing from playing a lovable buffoon to a heartless killer. Here, he embodies the latter and does it cold-eyed and calculating. Arthur Kennedy, William Talman, Luther Adler and Gene Evans expertly support our sociopathic star. This kind of no-frills film needs talented actors to make it work and thankfully CRASHOUT has them in abundance.

It also has a smart screenplay that rarely stumbles and keeps the proceedings believable. Kudos to director Lewis R. Foster who co-wrote it with Hal E. Chester. He efficiently delivers a tight, crackling one-two punch that ably does the trick. Throw in crackerjack cinematography from Russell Metty, suspenseful music courtesy of Leith Stevens, and fifties, sometime scream queen, Gloria Talbott (I Married a Monster from Outer Space) and you've got yourself a feisty little film noir/crime thriller.

One final note: Unmarried mother Alice Mosher's (Michaels) admittance that she gave birth to her son out of wedlock must be a near-first in a flick from this era. Another example of Ida Lupino's far-reaching influence. Gotta love the Ida! With wheezy Percy Helton as a doomed doc, CRASHOUT is currently available on YouTube.