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Undescribable Perfection

So much average

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Sometimes it's trying to be a lightweight comedy about a career criminal with a comic streak. Sometimes it's trying to present a serious look at the cruel hardships endured by men incarcerated in the middle of the Arizona desert. Sometimes it's trying to be a comedy about a bickering couple of grifter's. Sometimes it's showing a bloodbath during an attempted prison escape. Sometimes it's trying to be a comedy with scenes of prisoners bathing in rain barrels. And so it goes back and forth with no unity. It just cannot seem to make up its mind and as such it's a "one time watch and then donate film". Kinda sad as with that great cast it had a lot of potential.

If more westerns were like The Was a Crooked Man I could consider myself a bigger fan of the genre. The opening scene in which a black maid who fakes the mammy act sets the stage for a film which defies convention. To date I've never seen another western like it; it's not like a John Ford western or a Howard Hawks western, this is a Joseph L. Mankiewicz western; the first and only Mankiewicz western. I also love that theme song and am happy to hear it again and again in instrumental form throughout the film.Mankiewicz was a master of handling dialogue and thus there is such a snappy pace to the whole film. "Nothing like fried chicken while it's still hot and crispy" may be my favourite line Kirk Douglas has ever uttered in a film. The film is full of characters whom each get their own unique stories. The two homosexual lovers and comic buffoons played by Hume Cronyn and John Randolph have the most interesting character arc with an outcome which is the only time in the film someone isn't totally out for themselves. The large scale prison set on the other hand captures the mundanity of prison life with the film gradually building up to the impending escape, ranking There Was a Crooked Man among the great prison escape movies.There Was a Crooked Man is a movie which combines old Hollywood mixed with new Hollywood with its traditional western setting and it's dosing of cynicism. The cast features stars both veteran actors and younger stars and a script by David Newman and Robert Benton of Bonnie & Clyde fame. Even the one moral character in the film ends up turning bad. Henry Fonda plays the moral role he was known for throughout his career right up until the very end of the picture, leaving me with a big smile on my face. The movie is very cynical but it's that kind of wonderful cynicism that makes you feel happy, and not feeling down. Although I would call There Was a Crooked Man a funny movie, it is not the kind of film in which I find myself laughing but rather laughing inside to myself.

There Was A Crooked Man... is a bawdy and rowdy but morally bankrupt comedy that fits well with the anti-establishment sentiments at the time of it's release. It's a bit long but is helped considerably by an excellent cast and witty script.Kirk Douglas gives a good performance as a feisty outlaw in a territorial prison who squirreled away $500,000 in cash before being caught. Before long, he's using the unrecovered loot to gather around him a group of cons to help in his escape.The film is marred though, by Douglas' treacherous turn in the last act. He goes from lovable rogue to murderous backstabber at the drop of a hat, cold bloodily murdering friend and foe alike during his food fight, turned riot, turned escape attempt. Although his murderous streak is revealed at the beginning of the film, it's still quite unsettling to watch him kill people that the audience thought he bonded with.It's especially hard to watch Kirk double-cross the teenage boy played by Michael Blodgett, as he's really the only essentially good person in the entire film.Overall it's a bit overrated but still somewhat entertaining.

For his next to last film Joseph Mankiewicz did his only western and it ain't the west of John Ford or Howard Hawks. There Was A Crooked Man starts with the proposition that every man if given sufficient reason will turn dishonest.Kirk Douglas has never been afraid to appear as evil, but next to his performance in The List of Adrian Messenger, the screen's never seen him as diabolically evil as Paris Pittman, Jr. in There Was A Crooked Man. And it's clear from the start just how bad he is when he shoots the only other gang member after robbing miserly Arthur O'Connell of his half a million dollar fortune that he keeps in the house because of distrust of banks.So nothing that he does after this should surprise us. But Kirk Douglas is a player of incredible charm, never more so when used for evil intentions. Eventually he's caught and sent to Territorial prison from where he collects a gang of sorts and plots an escape.A year after the Stonewall Riots homosexuality finally comes to the west and its depicted in two ways. First John Randolph and Hume Cronyn are a pair of aging gay con men who've pulled one con too many and are in the prison with Douglas in the same cell. Randolph's the flighty one, but Cronyn as it turns out has more talent and more common sense than just about everyone else in the film. That fact saves their lives.And that's quite a look of lust that repressed prison guard Bert Freed has for young Michael Blodgett who admittedly is quite something to lust after. Blodgett is scheduled to hang at an undetermined date, but Freed's willing to give him some special consideration for special favors. Which Blodgett is unwilling to give him.Blodgett's story is the most tragic one of the lot. He's a 17 year old kid who's caught by a most flirtatious girl's father who cries rape. As the father aims his shotgun, Blodgett throws a billiard ball and the blow is a fatal one. I've always thought if the kid had a good lawyer he could have gotten off, it was self defense. He's really the only innocent in this film.The great moral figure in this is Henry Fonda, who's a lawman shot in the performance of his duty and now given the job of prison warden. He's another repressed individual, doesn't smoke or drink, and looks with particular disdain on sexual promiscuity. Without giving away exactly what Fonda does in the end, it seems he has no other choice. Douglas in pulling off the jail break has made a total fool of him. They'll be all kinds of inquiries so for Fonda the self righteous his duty is clear unless he wants to kill himself. Which in some cultures would have been the answer.But There Was A Crooked Man should be seen for what happens to Kirk Douglas. It is one of the most priceless comeuppances ever delivered on screen. Besides Douglas, Fonda, and others I've mentioned look also for good performances from Warren Oates and Burgess Meredith as another two convicts that Douglas takes into his confidence.Just as man can rise to noble heights on some occasions, with a little temptation he can fall. That's the unvarnished message of There Was A Crooked Man.