Black Tuesday (1954)

Black Tuesday was released in 1954 and it showed that Edward G. Robinson - years from playing tough gangsters in "Little Caeser" and even "Key Largo" - could still play a mobster in film and keep his performance fresh and interesting.

The film begins immediately in a prison. Director Hugo Fregonese (Man in the Attic and One Way Street) shows a number of silent prisoners pacing back and forth in their cells. A man breaks the silence and starts singing about death row - the "Black Tuesday Blues" - while keeping rhythm by beating the top of a wooden stool. Finally one of the prisoners has enough and yells for him to shut up. The opening credits flash on the screen over dramatic music and so begins a surprisingly good but mostly forgotten prison escape film starring Robinson, a very young Peter Graves, and Jean Parker.



With the help of a blackmailed prison guard, Robinson escapes on the eve of his own execution with a number of hostages, his fellow death-row inmates (especially Graves who has lots of cash stashed from his crime), and a cub reporter. These scenes showing the complicated prison break are probably the best part of the film.

Once the prisoners get to their hideout the film plays like a filmed stage play (not unlike The Desperate Hours or The Petrified Forest). The film remains suspenseful thanks to a very good supporting cast and Robinson knocking it out of the park playing a truly soulless bad guy. Once the cops surround the convicts safe house the film only gets more tension filled. There's an unlikely romance and some unneeded subplots but that doesn't stop the film from being a lost treasure that every noir fan should try to dig up.

The film was written by Sydney Boehm who also penned the screenplays for High Wall, Rogue Cop, Second Chance and most memorably the cop revenge thriller The Big Heat. Boehm doesn't break any new ground with this one. It's your standard prison-escape drama like many others including Canon City. However, from the complicated escape until the bloody end the film moves nicely. The film was lensed by Stanley Cortez who shows some nice use of shadow and light especially during the prison scenes. Cortez has dozens of movies to his credit and more than a few are excellent noir including Secret Beyond the Door..., The Underworld Story, and Night of the Hunter which came out in theaters a year after this one. Another studio work horse penned the music: Paul Dunlap does a his usual workman like job on the film's soundtrack. Looking at his IMDB page I see he could put out half a dozen film scores a year. Director Fregonese probably deserves the most credit turning what could be a by-the-numbers crime film into an extremely taut thriller.

Most reading probably haven't seen this one. That may be taken care of soon. In 2005 VCI Entertainment announced that they planned to release Black Tuesday on DVD as part of their Kit Parker lost noir series. I contacted VCI and they told me that they still plan on releasing the film but they are currently still sorting out the rights to release the DVD. (edit 2009: no dice. VCI has no plans for releasing it.)

See it anyway you can. It's a great forgotten noir with one of the best performances of Edward G. Robinson's long successful career slipping easily back into a bad guy role.

Written by Steve-O