Violent Saturday
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| Violent Saturday | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Richard Fleischer |
| Produced by | Buddy Adler |
| Written by | Sydney Boehm William L. Heath (Novel) |
| Starring | Victor Mature Richard Egan Lee Marvin Stephen McNally Sylvia Sidney |
| Music by | Hugo Friedhofer |
| Cinematography | Charles G. Clarke |
| Editing by | Louis R. Loeffler |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | April 1955 |
| Running time | 90 mins. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
Violent Saturday is a 1955 American crime drama directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Victor Mature, Lee Marvin, Richard Egan and Stephen McNally. The film, set in a mining town, describes the planning for a bank robbery and how it became enmeshed with the personal lives of the townspeople.
Prominent actors Sylvia Sidney and Ernest Borgnine are in supporting roles. Unlike many crime movies of the era, Violent Saturday was filmed in color, and on location in Bisbee, Arizona.
[edit] Plot Summary
Harper (McNally) is a bank robber posing as a traveling salesman. He arrives in town, soon to be joined by Dill (Martin) and Chapman (J. Carrol Naish).
Boyd Fairchild (Egan) is manager of the local coal mine, troubled by his philandering wife. He is considering an affair with a nurse (Virginia Leith). His associate Shelley Martin (Mature) has a happy home life, but is troubled by a son who believes that he is a coward because he did not serve in World War II.
A subplot involves the bank manager (Tommy Noonan) and a librarian (Sidney), whose lives interact with the robbery.
The lives of Fairchild and Martin are soon changed by the bank robbery as it gets underway in a violent climax.
Martin is trapped on a farm with an Amish family. With the help of the father (Borgnine) he defeats the crooks single handedly. That proves his courage to his son.
[edit] Critical reception
The New York Times did not approve of the violence of the movie. Critic Bosley Crowther called the movie an "unedifying spectacle," while praising the performance of Lee Marvin as a hood "so icily evil he is funny." Borgnine's performance was panned as "a joke."
More recent reviewers have been favorable. In a 2008 article, the Village Voice called it "the reigning king of Southwester noir."
[edit] External links
- Violent Saturday at the Internet Movie Database
- Violent Saturday at Allmovie
- Violent Saturday at Rotten Tomatoes
- New York Times review [1]
- Village Voice article [2]
