Watch Time Table For Free

Simply Perfect

Sadly Over-hyped

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

***SPOILERS***One the many film noir "Perfect Crime" movies of the 1950's that turned out to be anything but perfect has hotshot insurance investigator Charlie Norman, Mark Stevens, trying to act like a tough guy but coming across more like the wimpy Filex Unger of the TV show "The Odd Couple". In fact it's Felix's partner it that show Jack Klugman, as Oscar Madison, who's in the movie playing a private ambulance driver, using his car, who's given the 3rd degree by Norman while being interrogated by the police. The movie has to do with a $500,000.00 train robbery that Norman dreamed up involving disbarred, for drinking on the job, surgeon Paul Brucker, Wesley Addy, posing as a doctor trying to help one of the passengers, who's part of the robbery detail, suffering from appendicitis.Right from the start all of Norman's plans go downhill with one of his fellow train robbers getting shot accidentally thus upsetting the time table he set to make a quick getaway south of the border to Mexico. Things get even worse when Brucker going against Norman's orders makes a dash for the Mexican border with his wife and fellow train robber Linda ,the former wife of "The Lemon Drop Kid" himself Jack Lemon, played by Felicia Farr only to get gunned down by the Mexican border guards. As for Norman he secretly had the hots for Linda for some time and decided to take her along with him to Mexico and later Argentina with the stolen money and leave his long suffering wife Ruth played by Marianne Stewart, in being married to the two timing heel,behind. It was in fact Ruth who got the last laugh by mailing the stolen money she was to deliver to him back to it's rightful owner the train company.***SPOILERS*** Better then expected film noir crime drama directed by it's star Mark Stevens who kept the action tight, in not stretching it out, and mood depressing as hell in making losers of almost everyone in the film. It's in the final moments of the movie that Norman got everything he had coming to him as well as lost what turned to be the love of his life Linda who foolishly went along with the jerk in his attempt to escape justice. As for Norman himself he gets his piece of justice from the barrel from the .38 of his good friend train inspector Joe Armstrong, King Calder. It was Armstrong who had figured out his plan, with the help of Norman's soon to be estranged & widowed wife Ruth, of escape and stopped it before he could put it into operation!

As a train speeds through the Arizona night. A man posing as a physician holds up the baggage-car crew and escapes with a $500,000 payroll. The fake doctor, Paul Bruckner, leaves the train with his "patient" and the "patient's wife", who is really Bruckner's wife Linda. The insurance company puts its best investigator, Charlie Norman, on the case to work with the railroad's investigator, Joe Armstrong. The men are friends and Joe is upset that Charlie and his wife, Ruth, will have to postpone their Mexico vacation. Charlie's concern goes beyond the spoiled vacation as he was the brains behind the holdup, who had fallen in love with Linda several months earlier while investigating a claim Bruckner had filed against his insurance company. At first, Joe is unable to find anything out about the flawlessly timetable planning for the robbery other than what Charlie wants him to find out.The characters are poorly written.The story goes no where.

"Time Table" is a rather forgotten crime film which was directed by and stars Mark Stevens—a very capable but mostly forgotten actor from the 50s and 60s. It's really a shame the film isn't seen and lauded, as it's quite good—especially since it has a very modest budget. I've never seen it on TV nor DVD but fortunately it IS in the public domain and is therefore available through archive.org—a website often linked to films on IMDb. Download a free copy and watch it—it's quite good.The film starts off wonderfully—with one of the most intelligently filmed heists I can remember. You really need to see it—and I don't want to spoil it by saying more about this. In the next scene, a couple are talking about their upcoming and much-needed vacation to Mexico when the phone rings—the husband (Stevens) is needed at once. It seems he's an investigator for the insurance company covering the heist—and they want him to look into it ASAP. This means the vacation is on hold.When the investigation begins, it's quite obvious that the crime was very, very professional and was carried out with attention to every detail. However, during the robbery, somehow one of the gang was injured—and this might be the lead they need to break the case. But, in a WONDERFUL twist, the audience soon learns that there is so much more to the story than anyone has anticipated and the identity of the big brains of the operation is quite the surprise. I'd say more but don't want to spoil it.Some might consider this film to be an example of Film Noir. Well, it is a crime film from the 1950s and is pretty unflinchingly violent in places. However, the film lacks the snappy dialog and cinematography you'd expect for Noir. I personally like the way the movie was handled, as it seemed more realistic than Noir—like you were watching a real investigation unfold. Fascinating throughout.

Aboard a train slicing through the Southwestern night, the conductor summons a physician (Wesley Addy) to aid a passenger who has taken ill. `Polio' is his verdict, and he orders an unscheduled stop, so the patient can be taken by ambulance to a the nearest hospital. But first he must retrieve medical supplies from the locked baggage car. These supplies turn out to be a gun, three hypos to subdue the crew, and an explosive to relieve the safe of half a million dollars. When the train makes its stop, the doctor and his cronies vanish with the loot. Back in Los Angeles, news of the robbery puts a crimp into insurance investigator Mark Stevens' plans for a holiday south of the border with his wife (Marianne Stewart). He feigns disappointment, but isn't all that surprised, since he masterminded the whole thing. Apparently deep in a dilly of a midlife crisis, he dreamed up this get-rich-quick scheme, on the proceeds of which he would leave his wife and abscond to Mexico with one of his partners in crime, Felicia Farr (who, off screen, would become Jack Lemmon's long-time spouse). But he hadn't counted on two factors: That fate would disrupt his meticulously plotted timetable, and that his partner in the investigation would be meticulous old pro King Calder....Stevens' career as actor reached in high-water mark with The Dark Corner and The Street With No Name in the late ‘40s. In the ‘50s he turned his hand to producing and directing his own vehicles. The first, Cry Vengeance, was a pretty blatant knockoff of The Big Heat (and the camera was unkind to him), but Timetable, two years later, proves much better. Starting out as a clockwork heist movie, it quickly turns character-driven and wholly unsentimental. In his dual role as director and star, it's certainly Stevens' finest hour, anticipating, in its final Tijuana-set scenes, some of the corrupt, tourist-trap seediness of Touch of Evil.