Semiquincentennial Movie Project #24: The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #24: Missouri -

 

 

 

The state of Missouri was established on August 10, 1821 

Details about Missouri:

State bird: bluebird

State flower: hawthorn

State tree: flowering dogwood

Additional historical trivia:

There could be no such thing as "the greatest thing since sliced bread" without sliced bread. It was first sold in Missouri.

Missouri was where we first got instant pancake mix, too. 

The 1904 World's Fair introduced such things as the hot dog and cotton candy.

Missouri is the only state with an official "state grape", the Norton grape. (Gee. I'm hungry now...)

Missouri is one of only four states that have had two teams from the same state in a World Series. It happened twice, most recently in 1985 when the Kansas City Royals played the St. Louis Cardinals.

The famous Pony Express was headquartered in St. Joseph. 

Although the movie and it's literary source material place the events of The Exorcist in suburban Washington D.C., the actual historical events both are based on came from an event in St. Louis. {see footnote below}.  

Famous people born in Missouri: Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), science fiction great Robert A. Heinlein, U.S. President Harry S. Truman, Albert Pujols, Walter Cronkite, Scott Joplin, Chuck Berry, Dick van Dyke and my personal vote for the greatest horror movie actor, Vincent Price.

{Footnote}: Check out the book Behind the Horror: True Stories That Inspired Horror Movies. It's a fascinating book that details the real events behind some classic movies, some you would be surprised to find are based on real stories.

 

 

 

The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959): 

Note: The credits mention that many of the members of the St. Louis Police Department shown in the movie are actually the real members of the SLPD. Other sources state that even some of the local residents and bank employees are the real people involved.

 

The film opens as we get introduced to the gang who is planning to rob the local bank.  The guy in charge is John Egan (Crahan Denton). He has two cohorts, Willy and Gino. One of the subordinates, Gino (David Clarke), has brought along a newcomer, George Fowler (Steve McQueen). George is going to be the driver of the getaway car, although he has apparently never done anything illegal in his life up to this point.

 

George insists that all he will get involved with is to drive the getaway car. A guy as nervous as George comes off in this initial introduction seems to be an unlikely candidate even for something like driving a getaway car. I swear, I bet if someone lit a firecracker nearby he'd probably be a mile down the road before the echoes of the bang died down...

 

Willy (James Dukas) is immediately suspicious of this newcomer and doesn't trust him. Willy's obsession with trying to get John to get rid of him as a member of the gang becomes a key point later in the film. 

 

The nervousness of George is evident whenever he has to get more deeply involved than he really wants to. The first problem is John makes George steal a license plate. The second problem occurs when Gino forces George to go to Ann (Molly McCarthy), who is Gino's sister, to get some money they will be needing during the period of time staking out the bank, leading up to the robbery. Neither one is something that George really wants to do, but he keeps getting dragged in further and further to the plans than he really wants. It looks like he will be having a bigger hand in it than just the getaway driver after all.

 

The background of George comes out little by little, although all of the back story is not entirely revealed.  What we do find out is that George and Ann were involved in a relationship prior to the events in the film. Both were expelled from college, although it is never revealed why. For his part, George intends to use his cut of the loot from the robbery to get himself reinstated into the college and make something of himself. 

The rest of the gang have their own backgrounds. John is a career criminal, who is making one final grab before he intends to take off for Mexico, along with Willy. All three of the hardened criminals have their own issues. Gino is very worried about going back to jail, and his worry is foreshadowed early in the film when he has a panic attack, recalling the closed in feelings he had when he was a prisoner.

It takes a long time before anything exciting happens in this film. The first hour or so is just a character study of the main characters. We find out that John is misogynistic, due to his relationship with his mother, who was very abusive to him as a kid. (It is later implied, although not outright stated, that he was responsible for his mother's death). And I think maybe Willy is supposed to be gay, but I'm not sure. That too only is implied, as he doesn't exhibit any of the traits that were readily evident in other gay characters of the time period of the movie.

The whole thing comes crashing down as a result of Ann's discovery of George's plans. She promises not to tell the police about the plans, but she is not above leaving a message on the window of the bank. John is angry about this, but still plans to follow through with the robbery. The logical thing, to abandon the plan, is apparently not in the cards. 

Of course the whole robbery falls like a house of cards.  That can't count as a spoiler. After all, it's based on a real event and, in case you weren't paying attention, the movie opens with credits acknowledging real members of the SLPD playing the parts they had in the historical event.

Following his breakthrough role as the lead teen in The Blob,  McQueen makes a pretty good showing here. The rest of the main cast does a fairly decent job, although I think McCarthy as Ann is a bit over the top melodramatically. Her output following this film seems to make that a good judgement. Her list of credits only includes one other movie in the 60's, Blast of Silence, and a few TV appearances, and then she only has three more movies since 1979, all three with Matt Dillon (was she related to Dillon? I have no idea...)

If the only two contemporary reviews quoted in the wikipedia article are any indication of the reception, the movie wasn't really well-received. My personal opinion is that the only standout role in the film is McQueen. The main thugs are pretty much cardboard hoodlums, although the main one, Denton, is not all that bad. My basic suggestion is you could fast forward to about the 1:10 point in the film and watch the final 18 minutes and get the robbery and its aftermath, without missing much. McQueen completists might enjoy an early look at his work, but most people might get a little bored. Just a year or so later, however, McQueen would really start to shine, with his role in The Magnificent Seven (which, coincidentally, will be featured at The Midnite Drive-In next week...)

That wraps it up for this week. See you next time.

Quiggy