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I can’t quite claim this one as lost curio of the noir era, but there’s still some sweaty sexual neurosis and a leanness to the narrative that’s refreshing. That doesn’t paper over The Burglar’s messiness, like a sexual assault of Jayne Mansfield that’s disturbing now, and I can’t even imagine how it played in 1957. The Burglar is a small-time heist film that quickly unwinds into backstabbing, tragedy, and a sense of confusion over how the improbabilities piled up this high in the first place.
Dan Duryea leads a gang into a low-rent jewelry heist that is successfully pulled off. When the heat comes on, Duryea suggests that they lay low. It’s a smart idea that no one can seem to stick with as Martha Vickers and Stewart Bradley manage to find the gang, split them up through seduction, and nearly pull the whole thing down when the cops cannot. I bring this up because this gang just goes parading around in public like the fuzz isn’t breathing down their necks, including Mansfield in a holiday.
The story is simple and, frankly, not enough to justify the meager running time. The Burglar feels too often like time is being stalled as the next setup is slowly unfurling. At least Duryea and Vickers manage to liven things up with their sweaty and sultry presences, respectively. Naturally, they’d played these types of parts of before in better films, like Scarlet Street and The Big Sleep.
Narrative convenience with little tethering to reality is the order of the day, and this kind of impressionistic approach reaches and apex in the relationship between Duryea and Mansfield. A lot of noir is predicated upon the simmering sexual tension between characters, but The Burglar makes theirs nearly incestual by having her be his ward. Sexual hysteria, both in extreme repression or overindulgence, was a cornerstone of noir and The Burglar dials it up to 11 by having it both ways.
Nothing makes much sense, much of it is purple prose and disjointed, and the whole thing is covered in sweat. Part of me wants to praise the balls to the wall absurdity of The Burglar but it never gives in to its own insanity. Some of it just too damn dull.
