One of the first films M. Rooney did after all his andy hardy films. Co-stars Jeanne Cagney (james' sister!) and Barbara Bates. Rooney would make "All Ashore" with Bates a couple years later. Dan (Rooney) borrows money from the company till and it all goes downhill from there. and of course, keep an eye out for the talented but odd Peter Lorre (Nick). He has some weird relationship with Dan's girl Vera, and it just gets more awkward from there. Rooney narrates his own story, and it's a pretty sad tale. Seems to have been financed by Rooney and Lorre. It's just okay. Could have been so much better, but it looks like Rooney did the whole deal himself. I guess it's interesting for historical value, since it has Rooney, Lorre, and a couple others. Directed by Irving Pichel... one of the last things he did. only made a couple more after this. Currently showing on Midnight Movie channel. meh.

Pop culture treats some of its icons better than others, and "Quicksand" demonstrates convincingly that Mickey Rooney is unjustly underrated as a "real" actor (and not just "Andy Hardy" or a guest cameo appearance in a movie or TV show where he plays himself.) Rooney is absolutely believable here going somewhat against type as a likable, but not-especially-bright (or honest) working stiff whose life completely unravels after he gives into temptation to swipe/borrow $20 from the office cash register until he can tap his friends for the money they owe him.($20 was a good chunk of change back in a day when lunch at a diner cost 40 cents, though). In fact, the performances here range from pretty good to very good indeed, especially Peter Lorre, who manages to be disreputable and pathetic at the same time and whose every line oozes weariness and bleak humor. Also of special interest was Jeanne Cagney's role as "the Blonde" (who of course leads our protagonist down the road to ruin)- for the first minute she was on camera, I just couldn't see how she was going to fill that role, and then her hard features lit up and transformed into something altogether more interesting and appealing.And that transformation happened often and reliably enough that I began looking forward to seeing it.The plot is tightly constructed, although it relies too much on coincidence at a couple points, as Rooney's character keeps making more bad decisions and his crimes escalate from petty theft to robbery to burglary and Grand Theft Auto, to assault and murder and kidnapping...but in every case, it's not something the character wants to do, and so somehow he manages to remain a sympathetic figure. (He even feels bad about the way he treats the good woman who is in love with him). The subtext for the screen-play is even more interesting than the actual events of the film; early on it becomes obvious that everything in modern day society is stacked against "the little guy", and straying from the approved path brings punishment swift and sure...even if the little guy didn't mean any harm. It ends the way it must (since this is Rooney's film, it couldn't possibly end in any other way), which makes me wonder why they wanted to do a noir film in the first place rather than a straight melodrama...but there's plenty of solid, enjoyable film-making here, enough that anyone with a taste for this genre would find it worth their time.

Quicksand is directed by Irving Pichel (The Most Dangerous Game/ Destination Moon) and written by Robert Smith. It stars Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Barbara Bates & Peter Lorre. Lionel Lindon photographs it around Santa Monica, California, and Louis Gruenberg scores the music.Auto mechanic Dan Brady (Rooney) fancies himself as a ladies man, so when he sets eyes on sultry looking blonde Vera Novak (Cagney), he just has to date her. Intending to put it back tomorrow, Dan borrows $20 from the till of the garage where he works, the money to be used for the date with Vera. However, with Vera comes baggage, not only in what she wants out of Dan, but in the form of her ex-boss Nick Dramoshag (Lorre), who has designs on Vera too. Pretty soon Dan finds that his life is getting out of control as he gets in deep with robbery and maybe even murder?.Quicksand was received coldly back on its release, a generation of film goers had grown accustomed to Rooney lighting up the screen as Andy Hardy and turning in frothy performances in musicals. Here he goes against type, and the public wasn't ready for it, even tho he arguably gives one of his best career performances. As a film it's a very tight piece. The plot is in the classic noir tradition of having a male protagonist trapped in a downward spiral, no matter what he does, each decision he makes is a wrong one and only worsens his situation. That there's a blonde femme fatale (Cagney is sexy in a powerful way, with shifty glances telling so much) sat at his side as his life goes belly up; still further fuels the darker edges of the film noir feel. There's a devilishly bitter irony hanging over proceedings, too, that Dan could have escaped all this if he had not spurned the attentions of the more homely, but loyal, Helen (an adorable Bates). The film, and tone, is also boosted by Lorre turning in one of his sleazy sloth like performances, while a mention is warranted for Art Smith as Dan's boss, Oren Mackay, the kind of boss you could easily punch for fun.We possibly could have done with some more noirish artistry from Lindon for his photography, but he does OK, with a parking lot/back alley pursuit well shot. While Gruenberg's score is right in tone, especially the theme tune piece, which has a distinctly Cape Fear edge to it. It would come as no surprise to me to find that Bernard Herrmann had watched and listened to Quicksand prior to scoring the Mitchum & Peck classic. Look out too for Red Nichols and His Five Pennies band during a club scene, it's a nice touch that adds a bit of period detail. Clocking in at nearly 80 minutes, Quicksand doesn't hang around, it's briskly paced and suspenseful into the bargain. Certainly it's minor film noir, but all things considered, it's one of the better B's from this most wonderful of genres. 7.5/10

If you watch any documentary on film noir, there is one agreement by all critics as to what film noir actually is. To put it politely, some man destroys his future after meeting some dame who gives him the best night of his life. What comes after that can send the hero to the gas chambers, into the arms of the woman he should have been after all the time, or into a mass of bullets that tear him apart like a jigsaw puzzle. "Quicksand" is the perfect title for this low-budget independent movie released by United Artists two years after its star, Mickey Rooney, left the studio where he had been a top box office draw for a decade.As the title states, "Quicksand" tells the story of a man whose life begins to sink around him because of bad choices he makes when he meets one of Film Noir's most notable tramps. Not since Ann Savage in the cult classic "Detour" had there been such an obvious bad choice for a "pick-up", and in Rooney's case, it's Jeanne Cagney. He first meets her while on a lunch break from the car garage he works at when she takes his tab at the greasy spoon down the street. He flirts, she nastily rejects him, but he's determined. He leaves the diner with the promise of a date and then realizes he's broke. Since the bookkeeper who audits his cash register isn't due until later, he "borrows" $20 and then does all sorts of shady stuff to get the money back in the register. This leads him into more trouble. Before you know it, he's committing crimes with Ms. Cagney's help, which includes mugging a rich drunk and stealing money from arcade manager Peter Lorre's office. Cagney gets more and more vicious, Rooney gets more and more into trouble, and soon he thinks he's killed the owner of the garage he works at who, in addition to Lorre, has turned to blackmailing him.There are a lot of wholes in the story but it doesn't really matter. It's all a lot of fun and a reminder that there is a price to pay for every mistake we make in life. Rooney is outstanding, this coming at a time when his personal life and career were in a bit of shambles. United Artists released a bunch of sleeper film noirs on low budgets with independent producers such as this, "Sleep My Love", "Too Late For Tears" and "The Seond Woman". Most of them are easy to find on budget DVD's because they ended up in the public domain.Lorre is wasted in the small role of the rather violent manager of the arcade who obviously has had a bit of a past with Cagney, but what he does have to do as acting is very good. Barbara Bates plays the good girl who ends up an accessory to Rooney's crimes. She is quite believable as she goes from a naive loyal friend to the woman Rooney realizes he should have gone after. Like the old saying, "Gentlemen prefer blondes, but they marry brunettes", "Quicksand" takes this theme to a new level, especially with the scene where Bates almost gives up everything she's ever known to help him. It's a really incredibly thought out plot twist, and helped by the thoughtful lawyer the two encounter as they go on the run.While this may not be one of the four star examples of film noir, it is still a surprising delight that shows that low budget or fast filmed movies are not worthy of examination. Rooney had outgrown Andy Hardy, and this is one of the best of the many crime dramas he would do during his downward spiral that lasted until he made a good comeback as a character actor.