Siodmak Double Feature

Robert Siodmak is a king. As you probably know, The Killers is my absolute favorite film noir, and Criterion has been showing some other Siodmak films this month, including Criss Cross, which is only ok, and Phantom Lady, which is absolutely excellent. It's chilling and troubling, and it's masterfully shot. The photography is just breathtakingly good. This is a very, very good film – sexy and psychologically thrilling, while also being a good mystery – it's a total pleasure to watch.

Criss Cross is just a serviceable noir. Siodmak paired up with Burt Lancaster again after The Killers. Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo both bring the smolder, but this film just isn't plotted that interestingly. It's structured in such a way that I had forgotten all that I needed to remember by the time we jumped back forward in time. I understand why Daniel Fuchs wrote the screenplay the way he did, but it distinctly lessened the kind of tension any crime film like this is trying to build. Also, Dan Duryea is a smarmy looking actor, sure, but he's not really menacing.

I watched these movies on the Criterion channel. They had three Siodmak films and I had only seen The Killers, so I was really delighted to see that they were showing these others.