Criss Cross (1949)

CRISS CROSS  (1949)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Robert Siodmak
    Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea,
    Stephen McNally, Percy Helton, Richard Long
Young Burt Lancaster plays a guy named Steve, who returns to L.A., moves in with his family and gets his old job back driving an armored car. Without really planning to (he says), he wanders into the joint he used to hang out in, where without really planning to (he says), he runs into his ex-wife (Yvonne De Carlo), now hooked up with a gangster played by Dan Duryea. You just know things are going to go bad here, and they do. A good, downbeat thriller with some nice location work on the streets of Los Angeles. Lancaster gives one of his best early performances, and longtime bit player Percy Helton gets more screen time than usual as a sweetly sinister bartender.