RICHARD FLEISCHER'S ARIZONA NOIR DRAMA 'VIOLENT SATURDAY'

Stephen McNally arrives in the town he'll rob on VIOLENT SATURDAY

VIOLENT SATURDAY is a Film Noir Melodrama about three strangers in a small copper mining town, and they're not strangers to each other...

Year Released: 1955

Shot mostly in Brisbee Arizona changed to Bradenville with other shots in Lowell...

The Western-like town consists of a Main Street with the usual collection of shops and a bank along with outlaying Amish farms and a lucrative copper mine surrounded by an immense craggy backdrop for stuffy offices with large windows to look out onto: while the characters are what seem to matter, but they don't, really...

And this too seems on purpose, like a melodramatic soap opera (of the Douglas Sirk nature, which this has been compared to many times by critics and viewers alike) where personal choices leading to random fates are more significant and detailed than fleshed-out personalities and their goals, purposes. Yet a few are extremely bizarre and completely intriguing enough to thoroughly invest two neatly timed hours in: particularly the three bank robbers who turn the movie's title into a reality at the end of the week: You see, there's a bank, and on Saturday, it's gonna get robbed...

Most beautiful cinematography ever captured, period

The heavies include Lee Marvin as the moody hypochondriac with insomnia; even-keeled leader Stephen McNally; and the sort of ASPHALT JUNGLE Sam Jaffe short and non-threatening brain of the group in J. Carrol Naish, only there really doesn't seem to be a mastermind, herein, but Naish has the line of the picture when a kid in the bank acts like a cop, using his finger like a gun, and the old robber grabs candy from his own pocket and, handing it to the brat, says, "Stick these in your kisser and go suck on 'em."

Saturday Score: ****

The most interesting aspects in this Cinemascope thriller are deliciously sappy, moments that fit like a clenched-fisted glove. For the two main stars, Victor Mature, whose son doesn't think he's much of a war hero, and Mature's brooding business partner Richard Egan, whose two-timing (or perhaps, three-timing) wife causes him to flirt with the film's young sexy ingenue, bordering femme fetale without the gun, Virginia Leith, who, on the sidelines, causes a nerdy bank manager to become a severe peeping tom, a sub-story that's perverse, intriguing and could have panned out much further...

Opening Credit Sequence with a cool burning font YEAR: 1955

Richard Fleischer's VIOLENT SATURDAY is a crime film where crime means very little till the 11th hour in which our finally-designated hero, Victor Mature, leads the villainous trio to an Amish farm (including a passive Ernest Borgnine) where budding Noir turns modern standoff Western: a bit slow compared to the robbery that deserved a better followup climax. But as a whole, this SATURDAY, centering on the comparably passive days leading up to the title, is a relaxing page-turner of a film, and perhaps the most beautifully choreographed in the later Film Noir era.''

Gorgeous Technicolor Widescreen Cinematography for VIOLENT SATURDAY (train scene)

Lee Marvin, J. Carrol Naish, Victor Mature, Stephen McNally Boyd 'Red' Morgan in Violent Saturday

Lee Marvin, Stephen McNally and J. Carroll Naish in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Lee Marvin and Stephen McNally in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Stephen McNally and J. Carrol Naish in VIOLENT SATURDAY with Lee Marvin

J. Carrol Naish, Stephen McNally and Dorothy Patrick in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Lee Marvin, Stephen McNally and J. Carrol Naish in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Brad Dexter and Margaret Hayes in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Back to Violent Saturday now with Ernest Borgnine holding the pitchfork (facing Stephen McNally)

Richard Egan and Virginia Leith in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Richard Egan, Lee Marvin and J. Carrol Naish in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Margaret Hayes and Brad Dexter in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Like a monster movie as the town runs in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Tommy Noonan with a Vincent Price Shock poster in Violent Saturday

Ernest Borgnine and Victor Mature in Violent Saturday

Previous year has Ernest Borgnine, Victor Mature and Richard Egan in Demetrius and the Gladiators

Richard Egan and Victor Mature in VIOLENT SATURDAY

Twilight Time Blu Ray for VIOLENT SATURDAY