Criss Cross

1949 | Film Noir | 88 minutes | In English

Info

Steve Thompson returns to Los Angeles to try and rekindle the relationship with his ex-wife Anna. He gets a job as a driver with an armored-truck company. It’s a bit complicated; even though Anna is now married to the mobster Slim Dundee, she manages to encourage Thompson. To deflect suspicion, Thompson invited Dundee to help him hold up an armored car The robbery is botched up. Although Thompson is wounded, he grabs the money. Dundee sends one of his henchmen to the hospital to bring back Thompson and the money. Thompson bribes the henchman and has the henchman drive him to Anna’s hideout. Thompson and Anna are now looking forward to enjoying life and living on the stolen money. Seeing that Thompson is badly wounded, Anna decides to cross Thompson and take the money. While Thompson tries to reason with Anna, a raging Dundee finds them both. Now what?

Cast

Burt Lancaster (Steve Thompson) / Dan Duryea (Slim Dundee) / Yvonne De Carlo (Anna Dundee)

Why Stream This Film?

Siodmak and Burt Lancaster teamed up again after their initial success with The Killers. With Siodmak you can be sure film noir is in the hands of a master.

Rotten Tomatoes Score (Critics Consensus): 100%

Accolades

Edgar Allan Poe Awards: Best Motion Picture

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Director Robert Siodmak was one of the most influential stylists of the 40s, helping to create the characteristic look of American film noir. CRISS CROSS is an archly noir story replete with triple and quadruple crosses, leading up to one of the most shockingly cynical endings in the whole genre.

Dave Kehr

The Chicago Reader

Robert Siodmak’s grimly romantic film noir, set in Los Angeles, offers a hectic fusion of on-location texture and stylish artifice. Working with a script by the novelist Daniel Fuchs that features long flashbacks and interior monologues, Siodmak builds Steve’s morbidly subjective tale with startling visual flourishes, gestural details, and erotic tensions. The seething sensuality boils over in a frenzied Latin dance duet for Anna and the camera, abetted by the playing of Esy Morales’s band and the dancing of the uncredited Tony Curtis, in his first film.

Richard Brody

The New Yorker

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