Le destin est au tournant

As other reviewers point out, America's favorite little guy was at a career crossroads at this point (1953). All in all, this downbeat low-budget caper film was a gutsy choice for MGM's former golden boy. Not only is Rooney's Eddie Shannon a rather pathetically repressed and vulnerable nobody, but the script stays entirely within that character, allowing Rooney none of his usual assertive (and often annoying) antics. The result is perhaps the biggest departure of his career, and also perhaps the most moving.

The film itself is a good one, benefiting from unfamiliar Southern Cal locations, excellent acting from a number of up-&-comers, Jack Kelly , Kevin McCarthy, et al., and a plausible script. As a caper film, it's inferior to the best ones of that decade (The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing, etc.), but as an account of one man's sad and lonely plight (never a Hollywood biggie), it holds its own with the best of them, thanks to Rooney.

A shy Los Angeles mechanic and weekend racer (Mickey Rooney) is duped into being the getaway driver for bank robbers played by Kevin McCarthy and Jack Kelly. It seems as if they have a rather elaborate plot to hook him into their scheme by using McCarthy's girlfriend played by attractive Dianne Foster as lure for the shy and withdrawn Rooney who only has his job and his racing trophies to keep him going. It all works fairly well and shows how an innocent person is lured into doing something he would never ordinarily do with the bait being implied sex. Rooney is really good but so are both Kevin McCarthy and his partner played by Jack Kelly. The robbery itself occurs in Palm Springs and does not disappoint in execution with Kelly especially good as the gunman cracking jokes as he accompanies the head teller to the bank followed by the getaway car (which was souped up by Rooney). The film's title comes into play as Rooney drives like mad over a twisting mountain road back to the highway in under twenty minutes. All the elements of the story are mixed pretty well with a tough ending.

In his youth, and in particular his heyday over at MGM, Mickey Rooney would practically do cartwheels through his roles - he was that high energy. However, he was capable of something more than playing the energetic optimistic young man of pre-war America, and this film and 1950's Quicksand are probably the best examples of what that something was.

Here he plays auto mechanic Eddie Shannon that also does some race car driving. A mob of thieves take note of his talent behind the wheel at the race track and the gang leader's girl (Dianne Foster as Barbara) flirts with Eddie and gets him to believe that she loves him. Then the thieves lower the boom on him - they proposition him to drive their getaway car during a bank robbery in return for 15000 dollars. The reason that Eddie is so needed is that the road between the bank and the main highway past the point where any road blocks would be requires fast driving over what amounts to unpaved desert terrain. Eddie's an honest guy, willing to wait and work for the things he wants, but Barbara is holding out the need for this quick money as a condition of their relationship continuing, so he gives in and agrees to the robbery plan. To him, Barbara is his treasure, not any amount of money that he could land. Little does he know she's fool's gold.

Rooney is convincing as the little guy who takes it on the chin from a verbally abusive coworker at the garage who - like all bullies - doesn't seem to realize that high school is at least ten years behind him. Without saying much you can tell Rooney's character Eddie is a guy that has come to have low expectations of life, not so much abused as he is ignored and invisible to the opposite sex, and is surprised when a beautiful girl takes notice of him. Things are getting out of hand for Barbara too, as she feels deep remorse for using Eddie. Kudos also go to Kevin McCarthy and Jack Kelly as the two thieves. McCarthy's character has a very thin veneer of charm painted over what appears to be a soul of pure evil. When he kisses a rather apathetic Barbara and doesn't like her lack of enthusiasm, he warns her to never kiss him like that again in a way that will give you goosebumps. Jack Kelly's character is more of an all out wild man. You can just tell that he considers violence the most amusing pastime on earth.

I'd recommend this one for Rooney's performance, but I'd downgrade this one just a little bit on lost opportunities for what could have been some fine action shots during the bank robbery scene and the getaway thereafter.

I should say that "Drive a Crooked Road" probably won't hold your attention quite as much as most movies that I've seen. What's mostly eye-opening about it is just seeing Mickey Rooney in a gritty role in a film noir. He plays Eddie Shannon, a mechanic with little aim in life. The high points in his daily routine are when his co-workers ogle women walking by the shop. But when he gets mixed up with the wrong woman, he suddenly finds himself involved in a bank robbery with apparently no way out.

While some people might assert that Mickey Rooney was miscast here, I beg to differ. In this role, he shows that he can be something totally different from the "family-oriented" roles with which he's usually been associated (though I best remember him from "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "Night at the Museum"). This movie is approximately as gritty as the average film noir, and while it's not any kind of masterpiece, still worth seeing. As it's apparently not widely available on video or DVD, Portland's video/DVD store Movie Madness has a copy.

Also starring Kevin McCarthy (of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") and Jerry Paris (the neighbor on "The Dick Van Dyke Show").

In California, the mechanic Eddie Shannon (Mickey Rooney) is also an excellent racing-car driver that expects someday to save money to race in Europe in Le Mans, Grand Prix and other car races driving a European car. Eddie is a short and shy man that has difficulties to date a woman. When the crooks Steve Norris (Kevin McCarthy) and Harold Baker (Jack Kelly) see the performance of Eddie in a local race, they use Steve´s girlfriend Barbara Mathews (Dianne Foster) to seduce Eddie to convince him to drive the getaway car in a bank heist. What will be Eddie´s attitude?

"Drive a Crooked Road" is a film-noir written by Blake Edwards and directed by Richard Quine. Mickey Rooney performs a dark and sad role that seems to be tailored for him. The femme fatale Dianne Foster is the key element of the story, first seducing Eddie and then triggering his anger leaving him full of hatred. The gloomy conclusion surprises, but fits perfectly to the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Valentões" ("The Bullies")