1955 film by Richard Fleischer
Violent Saturday is a 1955 American CinemaScope crime film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Victor Mature, Richard Egan and Stephen McNally. Set in a fictional mining town in Arizona, the film depicts the planning of a bank robbery as the nexus in the personal lives of several townspeople. Filmed on location in Bisbee, Arizona, the supporting cast was particularly strong, with Lee Marvin, Sylvia Sidney, and Ernest Borgnine.
Plot
Harper is a bank robber posing as a traveling salesman. He arrives in the town of Bradenville, soon to be joined by sadistic benzedrine addict Dill and bookish Chapman.
Boyd Fairchild is the manager of the local copper mine who is troubled by his philandering wife. He considers an affair with nurse Linda Sherman, although he truly loves his wife. His associate Shelley Martin has a happy home life although his son believes that he is a coward because he did not serve in World War II. Harry Reeves, the manager of the local bank, is a peeping tom, and librarian Elsie Braden resorts to larceny to escape her debts.
As the bank robbers execute their plan to rob the bank, Fairchild's wife is slain and Reeves is wounded in a gunfight. Martin is held hostage on a farm with an Amish family. With the help of the family's pacifist father, he defeats the crooks. In the aftermath, Martin becomes a hero to his son and Linda comforts Fairchild as he grieves for his wife.
Production
The film was based on the eponymous novel by William L Heath, although the story's location was changed from Alabama to Arizona for the screenplay. In August 1954, studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck recommended that 20th Century-Fox acquire the screen rights prior to publication,[5] and the studio paid a reported $30,000.[6] Victor Mature had been feuding with Fox but agreed to play the lead.[7]
Filming began on December 6, 1954.[8] Location filming occurred in Bisbee, Arizona.
Richard Fleischer later wrote in his memoirs that "besides being the first CinemaScope picture ever made for under $1 million, it was a damn good movie. Darryl Zanuck, the studio's big boss, was very taken with it, and we – [producer] Buddy [Adler] and I – became sort of heroes. The direct result of this minor triumph was that I was given a five year directing contract and Buddy became Darryl's most favored producer."[9]
Reception
New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther disapproved of the violence in the film, calling it an "unedifying spectacle," while praising the performance of Lee Marvin as a hood "so icily evil he is funny." Borgnine's performance was panned by Crowther as "a joke."
Later reviewers have been favorable. In a 2008 article, the Village Voice called the film "the reigning king of Southwestern noir." The New York Press said: "Violent Saturday seems rooted in tradition, but as an exciting pulp story with a profound center, it manages to break all the rules." George Robinson of Cine-Journal wrote, "With the possible exception of The Narrow Margin, this is Richard Fleischer's best film ... Great, nasty fun." Michael Sragow of The New Yorker said, "Packed with twists and surprises. Marvin proves most unsettling as a hard guy who's always snorting from an inhaler (it's psychosomatic: he once had a wife with a perpetual cold). Mature, with his stricken manliness, reminds you of why James Agee thought he would be perfect as Diomed in Troilus and Cressida."[10]
