Ed Platt plays a character named Mr. T (no relation to Mr. T, and for that matter, to Mr. Coffee). Platt is a bearded intellectual who runs a beatnik hangout. He collects dough from Ned Glass, who sells hot watches. Glass pinches the new blonde waitress. Platt and Glass have a discussion on the beatnik movement:
Platt: "Are you beat?"
Glass: "Oh sure man, cool, way out and long gone dad as they say."
Another denizen of the club is I. Stanford Jolley, who wears an eye patch and recites incomprehensible stuff like this:
"Lost,
Lost,
The Marshal has the big say-so in this man's town,
Tarnished star on the breast of space,
Will the lawman arrest our souls at the railway siding,
Where the big train stands?"
Today, this would earn him a Ph. D. in literature, but somewhere, Robert Frost is hurling.
Platt decides on the big score, and hires three losers to pull a heist. The losers are, in alphabetical order, John ( "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" ) Lupton, Gregg ( "Zombies of Mora Tau" ) Palmer, and Don ( "The Giant Gila Monster" ) Sullivan. This is a case of life imitating art, or art imitating life, or people imitating actors. Platt's idea is to rob an armored car for a cool million. He needs Sullivan because he is an expert with a rifle. He needs Lupton and Palmer for I don't know what. Each of the losers has baggage; Sullivan has a rich mother who is a pain, Palmer is an unemployed actor, and Lupton is a hack writer.
Platt, Glass, et al board the Los Angeles train for New York. Palmer's wife, played by Kathleen Crowley, decides to come along for the ride, probably because Palmer told her he has an acting gig in New York. During a four-hour layover in Chicago, the guys rob the truck, and manage to get back in time to board the train. In short order, Sullivan decides he wants to keep most of the money; he then goes belly up. Lupton is next. Meanwhile, Platt, now clean-shaven, wanders around the train disguised as a priest. Finally, the train arrives in Newark (what happened to New York?) and Platt steps off with this remark:
"Newark. I'd know it anywhere."
He then uses his cane to clobber a cop.
Robert Shayne enters the fray as a police lieutenant (an inspired bit of casting), who is about to arrest Palmer, when Palmer escapes and sets out after Platt in the Newark train yards. The chase scene is one of the funniest on record, as Platt manages to alternately beat down Palmer with a cane, then a chain. Let's just say the finale is electrifying. Sorry about that, Chief.
I suppose this is a good opportunity to see Gregg Palmer before his weight ballooned. Lest we forget, he was the native in "From Hell It Came," who later turned into a walking tree trunk. Later in his career, when he actually was the size of a tree trunk, he had bits in several John Wayne westerns, all with disastrous results. He got slugged by the Duke in "The Undefeated," pitchforked by the Duke in "Big Jake," and shot in the gut by the Duke in "The Shootist." Sullivan, of course, is famous for singing "And the Lord said 'laugh, children, laugh'" from "The Giant Gila Monster," while Lupton is famous for looking like Sterling Hayden after a three-day bender.
Perhaps my own beat poem best sums up the film:
Stanford is Jolley,
The movie sucks,
But seeing Platt with a beard,
Is worth a few bucks.
Hey man.
