Very well executed

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Mild-mannered race track mechanic/driver Mickey Rooney is shyly in love with pretty Dianne Foster which alerts her boyfriend and his fellow drivers to the possibility of using him as the get-away driver in a bank heist. He is desperate to remain honest but being infatuated with Foster gives him more temptation than he can handle.Lacking in any real passion, this ends up being just another one of the many heist films and one of Rooney's more unmemorable B films after his long reign at MGM. He may have continued to work regularly, but other than a few great supporting parts here and there was shoved mainly in crap to continue to get a paycheck.Supporting actors show more life here than Rooney does, his acting mainly tepid until the finale. For most of the film, its mostly talk, talk, talk and little action. The location footage is pretty good and the over a photography is excellent. But there really is little action and absolutely no spark between Rooney and Foster. Mainly for the most loyal of the Mick's cult following or lovers of crime drama. The noir aspect of it is obviously subtle which indicates that it will be questioned in the list of films in that genre.

***SPOILERS*** In one of his best adult roles Mickey Rooney is car mechanic and race car driver Eddie "Shorty" Shannon who gets caught up in a bank robbery not for money but for love in him impressing gun moll Barbara Mathews, Dianne Foster. It was Barbara who made a play for Eddie in getting him involved, as a wheel man, in a bank robbery that her boyfriend greasy Steve Norris, Kevin McCarthy, and his pal Harold Baker, Jack Kelly, were planning to pull off.Not at all interested in his take of $15,000.00 in the robbery but only wanting to impress Barbara Eddie against his better judgment went along with the plan only to end up getting stiffed by her in dropping him like a hot potato and planning to check out to France with her greasy boyfriend Norris. Eddie for his part heart broken as he was still carried a torch for the double-dealing Barbara and after he escaped being murdered by Baker in order to keep him from talking to the police went back, bloodies and battered after his escape, to the beach house where Norris & Barbara were and that's where the real action in the movie began.***SPOILERS*** A tour de force by Mickey Rooney who's acting in the film was so both tragic as well as touching that it should have easily earned him an Academy Award. Mickey playing against type and a lonely and shy , with girls, young man compared in real life where he romanced the most beautiful women, Lana Turner Norma Sherer Ava Gardner & Marilyn Monroe, in Hollywood Mickey made you forget who he was in the role, as a love starved schnook, that he so convincingly played.

In his youth, and in particular his heyday over at MGM, Mickey Rooney would practically do cartwheels through his roles - he was that high energy. However, he was capable of something more than playing the energetic optimistic young man of pre-war America, and this film and 1950's Quicksand are probably the best examples of what that something was.Here he plays auto mechanic Eddie Shannon that also does some race car driving. A mob of thieves take note of his talent behind the wheel at the race track and the gang leader's girl (Dianne Foster as Barbara) flirts with Eddie and gets him to believe that she loves him. Then the thieves lower the boom on him - they proposition him to drive their getaway car during a bank robbery in return for 15000 dollars. The reason that Eddie is so needed is that the road between the bank and the main highway past the point where any road blocks would be requires fast driving over what amounts to unpaved desert terrain. Eddie's an honest guy, willing to wait and work for the things he wants, but Barbara is holding out the need for this quick money as a condition of their relationship continuing, so he gives in and agrees to the robbery plan. To him, Barbara is his treasure, not any amount of money that he could land. Little does he know she's fool's gold.Rooney is convincing as the little guy who takes it on the chin from a verbally abusive coworker at the garage who - like all bullies - doesn't seem to realize that high school is at least ten years behind him. Without saying much you can tell Rooney's character Eddie is a guy that has come to have low expectations of life, not so much abused as he is ignored and invisible to the opposite sex, and is surprised when a beautiful girl takes notice of him. Things are getting out of hand for Barbara too, as she feels deep remorse for using Eddie. Kudos also go to Kevin McCarthy and Jack Kelly as the two thieves. McCarthy's character has a very thin veneer of charm painted over what appears to be a soul of pure evil. When he kisses a rather apathetic Barbara and doesn't like her lack of enthusiasm, he warns her to never kiss him like that again in a way that will give you goosebumps. Jack Kelly's character is more of an all out wild man. You can just tell that he considers violence the most amusing pastime on earth. I'd recommend this one for Rooney's performance, but I'd downgrade this one just a little bit on lost opportunities for what could have been some fine action shots during the bank robbery scene and the getaway thereafter.

I saw this one at the theater, as a kid, when it came out. I have searched for a VHS copy of this one for years, and finally came across it recently on the internet. It is no wonder that this one stayed with me for so long. This is without a doubt Mickey Rooney's best movie as an adult. It would seem that after the war and the Andy Hardy series wound down that Mick was having a difficult time finding his niche in Hollywood. He did score very well with "Quicksand"(1950)but in this one he pulls out all the stops. Constantly he is referred to as "the little freak" and several comments are made concerning his manhood, or lack thereof. We slowly watch as Mick is played off by the gangster's moll, lured into the web of robbery and deceit; this is NOT a pretty movie. The movie builds slowly to an unforgettable, unexpected climax. Still a great movie after almost 50 years!