I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this 50s view of small town America for the glossy technicolor and cinemascope photography. How clean even a quarry looks. Victor Mature in a suit looks like Tarzan in New York, and it all felt like good trashy fun, especially with Lee Marvin as the hood. I still kept watching when it turned on the 50s morality of a TV episode of Alfred Hitchcock presents, and everything fell too neatly into place, but was less enthralled. Still, the film stays in the mind for it's location in Arizona, the suits, the sex, the schmaltz. How conveniently the adulterous wife is removed to allow the drunken husband a second chance with the cute young nurse. How ridiculously obvious the bank manager makes his schoolboy crush on the same nurse. How predictable the hero's chance to prove he's a hero to his son. Despite the wide screen and its visual pleasures, this is mostly an elongated TV show.
Review of Violent Saturday
