Black Tuesday (film)
| Black Tuesday | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Hugo Fregonese |
| Produced by | Robert Goldstein |
| Screenplay by | Sydney Boehm |
| Starring |
Edward G. Robinson Peter Graves Jean Parker Milburn Stone |
| Music by | Paul Dunlap |
| Cinematography | Stanley Cortez |
| Edited by | Robert Golden |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Black Tuesday is a 1954 film noir starring Edward G. Robinson. It marks a return of Robinson playing evil gangster types like he did in early Warner Bros. films. The crime melodrama also stars Peter Graves in one of his early film roles and Jean Parker in one of her late ones. It was shot in black-and-white.[1]
Plot
A violent con, Vincent Canelli (Robinson), escapes prison on the night of his execution. With the help of a phony newspaper reporter and Canelli's girlfriend, the con takes along five hostages including a priest.
Another inmate, Peter Manning, is taken along because Canelli wants the money Manning hid before going to jail. Manning is injured badly in the escape and leaves a bloody trail.
The gang ends up at a hideout where they're surrounded by police. Canelli threatens to kill hostages if he's not given safe passage and murders the priest to make his point. Manning is horrified and ends up killing Canelli, then giving up himself and the others to police.
Cast
- Edward G. Robinson as Canelli
- Jean Parker as Hatti
- Peter Graves as Manning
- Milburn Stone as Father Slocum
- Warren Stevens as Stewart
- Jack Kelly as Carson
- Russell Johnson as Sloane
- William Schallert as Collins
Reaction
Critical response
The New York Times gave the film a positive review, writing, "...it's good to have a reminder that Hollywood still holds top priority in the gangster melodrama field. Take Black Tuesday, which accompanied the Palace's new stage bill yesterday, with Edward G. Robinson playing his old, snariing, savage self. We hastily add that this medium-budget United Artists offering, produced by Robert Goldstein, by no means reprises the sterling tradition of those cops-and-killers yarns about our urban jungles of the roaring Twenties, when the Robinsons, Cagneys and Munis cut their fangs. However, purely on a surface level, the new entry can snuggle up to them quite respectably ... In contrast to Mr. Robinson's wholesale sputtering, the supporting cast of comparatively unfamiliar faces are brought, one by one, into impersonal but perceptive focus. And most of them shine convincingly."[2]
Film historian and critic Alain Silver said of the film, "When society at large is threatened, the psychopaths presented tend to be of the most violent ilk, as if to justify social repression by exaggerating the threat. Edward G. Robinson as gangster Vincent Canelli in Black Tuesday... exhibits a sadistic bent rivaled only by James Cagney in White Heat."[3]
References
- ↑ Black Tuesday at the Internet Movie Database.
- ↑ The New York Times, film review, January 1, 1955. Accessed: July 6, 2013.
- ↑ Silver, Alain and Elizabeth Ward. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Overlook TP, 1993. ISBN=0-87951-479-5.