It's never a good sign when a film sits unreleased for years until one of the
actors becomes famous. But that's exactly what happened with THE
BURGLAR. It was made in 1955 and then sat unreleased until 1957 after
Jayne Mansfield found mainstream success with THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT. And
it's kinda easy to see why it sat for two years:
First off, those promises in the posters are total bullshit. "
You'll be tense with suspense and limp from excitement!" It's more like I was limp from not giving a fuck. "
They set up a luscious blonde as bait for the robbery of the century!" What the fuck are you talking about? Yes, the criminals sent in
Jayne Mansfield to case(!) the house. That's it. Later on, Dan
Duryea went in and stole one necklace worth $150,000. That's hardly the
"robbery of the century". "
An army of police...and the underworld hot on the scent of the beautiful
burglar mixed up in the robbery of the decade!" Well, now you've already reduced it from the robbery of the century to
the robbery of the decade. And...it was only the cops on their trail and
not the underworld at all! Plus, Mansfield was not the burglar. She
stayed at home during the one and only burglary.
As far as the lame story goes...A burglar (Dan Duryea) successfully steals a
"
priceless" necklace (which is immediately valued at $150,000), but due
to all kinds of amateur mistakes made on his part, he soon finds that the
necklace is more trouble than it's worth. His biggest mistake is not
pulling the robbery alone or maybe with just one person to case the the
joint. Instead, he uses his step-sister (Mansfield), who's secretly in
love with him(!!!), to go in and scout the location. Alright, that's
fine. But then later that same night he parks
directly out front of
the mansion and then he and his two(!!) partners go onto the property while he
does 100% of the work! The other two don't do shit. Being that it's
an very upscale neighborhood, the police start investigating the car and from
there on it the whole plan goes to hell. He does manage to steal the
necklace, but since doesn't even have a buyer lined up, he decides it's best if
they all four simply hang out in their rented house until...I'm not sure
what. This ends up being a horrible plan (duh!) due to the fact that 1)
they're still in the area of the robbery and 2) all three of his partners
instantly start to go stir crazy! Including his step-sister who
still wants some of Dan Duryea's delicious ding-dong!
THE BURGLAR is not a bad film, just one that should have never been made.
Uninspired script, lame overacting by the entire cast, uneven photography that's
boring most of the time and then kinda cool for brief moments, slow as molasses
pace, unlikable characters, dumb decisions nonstop. On the other hand,
Jayne Mansfield is
very attractive and probably turns in the best
performance of the entire movie. I normally like Dan Duryea, but goddamn
his character was dumb.
I would say "Skip it.", but it was good for a laugh.
