Racketeer Vince Canelli (Edward G. Robinson) and bank robber Peter Manning (Peter Graves) are to die in the electric chair. Manning stole $200,000 but refuses to reveal where the money is.
Vince has no intention of keeping his date with death. His girlfriend Hatti (Jean Parker) has an ingenious plan. It’s so crazy it might work.
If Vince escapes he’s taking Manning with him. That two hundred grand will get them out of the country.
They leave a few corpses behind them and they take some hostages.
The first half of the movie is the prison break. The second half is the manhunt which ends in a bloody siege. The body count will be high.
Edward G. Robinson is in fine form. He plays Vince as a madman, ready to explode into violence at any moment.
Peter Graves is the standout performer and Manning is the most interesting and complex character by far.
All the supporting performances are good, the one exception being Milburn Stone’s dull turn as the priest.
What makes this movie a cut above most prison break movies is its moral complexity. Vince is a vicious crazy killer but his love for Hatti is real. He cares about her more than he cares about anything else.
Hatti’s devotion to Vince is absolute. She would die for him.
The bad guys are dangerous killers but in some ways the ostensible good guys are worse.The bad guys might be killers but they are at least brave men (and in the case of Hatti brave women). The prison guards and the reporters get real pleasure out of watching prisoners get executed. They get even more pleasure from psychologically torturing condemned prisoners beforehand. What they enjoy most is that they get to participate in legal killings without taking any risks.
Apart from Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole this may be the most negative portrayal of journalists in any 1950s movie.
It’s clear that capital punishment is seen purely as revenge. As a response to violent crime it simply fuels further violence. When men know that the state is going to execute them they have nothing to lose - they might as well keep on killing if that’s the only way to stay alive. Vince Cannelli is a killer but he’s a man and he wants to survive. It was the state’s death sentence on him that fuelled his final murderous rampage. If you brutalise already violent men you’ll just make them more violent. The cycle of violence keeps going.
Peter Manning is not a vicious psychopathic killer to begin with but with that death sentence hanging over his head he will kill to stay alive. Black Tuesday does not indulge in any obvious overt messaging but there’s some real substance to this movie if you dig a bit deeper.
Argentinian director Hugo Fregonese does a fine job here. Mention must be made of Stanley Cortez’s superb noirish cinematography.
Sydney Boehm wrote the screenplay. His credits include the classic The Big Heat (1953) and a stack of great movies such as Violent Saturday (1955), Secret of the Incas (1954), Union Station (1950), Side Street (1949) and High Wall (1947). Toughness was a major characteristic of his writing.
Black Tuesday isn’t pure film noir but it has some genuine noir flavour. An excellent underrated hard-edged crime thriller. Highly recommended.
Kino Lorber have provided a lovely transfer and Gary Gerani’s audio commentary is very worthwhile.
From this same Edward G. Robinson boxed set I’ve also reviewed Nightmare and Vice Squad.
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