Violent Saturday

Three well-dressed hoods come to a small town to rob its bank in this solid 50's B-movie, well directed by Richard Fleischer. The Peyton Place type subplots are pure soap (except maybe for a bizarre bit featuring Tommy Noonan as a milquetoast pervert), but the bank job and its aftermath are pretty good payoffs. Chief among this film's pleasures are the great supporting character actors, including Noonan, J. Carroll Naish as a veteran safecracker, Sylvia Sidney as the town's crusty librarian, and, in early performances, Lee Marvin as a sadistic thug who favors powder blue suits and Ernest Borgnine as, of all things, an Amish farmer ("I thank thee, neighbor.")! If you like typical 50's B-movies, this will definitely be a guilty pleasure -- it's worth hunting for (I found a lousy print of it that was put out by some company called Hellfire Video). How can you resist a movie starring Victor Mature and titled "Violent Saturday"!