"Look, I Said He Was All Right"

 More Here Than Meets The Eye

The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) – The promise of easy money from his ex-girlfriend’s criminal brother lures a disgraced college football player into a gang setting up a bank robbery. Based on an actual event, it’s one of Steve McQueen’s earliest roles.

Directed by Charles Guggenheim and John Stix

Starring Steve McQueen, Crahan Denton, David Clarke, Molly McCarthy, James Dukas

Why I Liked It – The story is interesting enough to get past the low budget dialogue and cinematography.

George Fowler (McQueen) is a disgraced football player trying to get his feet under him. The story never spells out what George Fowler and Ann did, but they both got expelled. They broke up, but her career criminal brother Gino (Clarke) recruits George to be the driver in a bank robbery. The gang leader, John Egan (Denton), isn’t thrilled about a “new guy” but they’re on a tight schedule. Along with Egan’s sidekick, Willie (Dukas), they plan the robbery down to the second. Problems arise, especially when Ann reenters George’s life.

The actual robbery that inspired the movie, the 1953 attempted robbery of the Southwest Bank in St. Louis, gets actual screen time here. A variety of folks who were in the bank on that day, play themselves here. One of the police officers who first responded to the alarm is here, as are a variety of customers. And they filmed the movie on the actual location. It’s a cool little detail.

As for the movie itself, it’s a very early Steve McQueen role. He’d gotten his first serious attention the previous year in “The Blob”, and stardom was only a few years away. He’d appear in “The Magnificent Seven” in 1960, and “The Great Escape” in 1963. The dialogue is a stumbling block for everyone. Sometimes it’s fine, and the action rolls briskly. Then it slams face first into some that is so bad it would make AI blush. Overall, the movie pushes through it’s obvious low budget with minimal issues. There’s a gritty realism that makes the movie stand out for me. It only struggles in the final twenty minutes.

I’ve seen this movie listed as “noir” in several places, and I’ll disagree with that assessment. I don’t see it hitting the minimums for things like the cynical worldview, and the sexual tension gets the kid gloves treatment. That’s because the sexual aspect in this movie is homosexual. Egan’s character lays out his relationship with Willie just prior to the robbery itself. He talks about Willie being a pretty when he got to prison, and a “mama’s boy”. Then he reminds Willie that he protected him while they were inside. Willie’s jealousy of George and possessive attitude toward Egan make sense. Egan had a problematic relationship with a domineering and abusive mother (a common “explanatory” trope for homosexuality in the ‘50s), resulting in a violent hatred of all women. Given the era, and the production standards of the day, there’s nothing overt about it. I can see the argument being made based on Egan and Willie, but George and Ann offer a more innocent counterbalance. Maybe it’s a personal issue, but it never rises to the level of noir for me.

You can stream “The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery” on a wide range of services, including Amazon Prime, MGM+, Tubi, Pluto TV, Vudu, Crackle, YouTube and YouTube TV.

Rating – *** Worth A Look

 Tough to find a trailer for this one.  Sorry for the quality.