User Reviews

Gritty low-budget prison film stars Edward G. Robinson as a death-row inmate about to be executed (black Tuesday) along with a convict (Peter Graves) who has $200,000 stashed away on the outside. But just as they are about to go to the chair, they pull an amazing prison break and escape.

With a new gang that includes his moll (Jean Parker), Robinson plots to get the cash out of a safety deposit box. But things get complicated when Graves takes a bullet. With Parker posing as his secretary, Graves gets the money but his wound starts bleeding, tipping off the bank guard.

Holed up in a warehouse and with several hostages, Robinson resists the cops' barrage of bullets and tear gas and threatens to kill the hostages one by one unless they are allowed to escape. But is there honor among thieves and murderers? Robinson is terrific as the murderous thug who will sacrifice anyone to get his way. Parker is also terrific as the hard-boiled moll (after decades of soft heroine roles). Graves is also good as the fellow con. Co-stars include Warren Stevens, Milburn Stone, Jack Kelly, Sylvia Findley, Russell Johnson, Vic Perrin, William Schallert, and Frank Ferguson.

Finding a print of Black Tuesday is still quite impossible. And it's a long time mystery : written by Sidney Boehm (The Big Heat and a dozen films noirs), directed by Hugo Fregonese (The Raid, Apache Drums and the unknown Six Convicts), photographed by Stanley Cortez (Night Of The Hunter and so many more) and with EG Robinson as Vincent Canelli, a fast violent happy trigger killer, getting real mad all around his escape. This dream team of film noir have shot a truly desirable one. And yet, I feel slightly disappointed. Certainly not by Stanley Cortez photography, the master still being inventive with lights and shots. Certainly not by EG Robinson, his character is one of his best in his career and he is strongly supported by Peter Graves (his friend then his victim) and Jean Parker as his girlfriend. I think Sidney Boehm's script is not enough worked, lacking nervous speed and more complexity, especially in the first two parts : the escape from jail and the hold-up bank. The third and last part is more atmospheric with police forces attacking the gangsters in their refugee with a storm of bullets and gas. I find Black Tuesday yet very interesting and we need to see a remastered print to get the ultimate opinion on one of the rarest film noir (after Incident by William Beaudine). Time will tell.

At 80 minutes, this B picture from the mid-1950's was released about 2 years before RKO was sold to Lucy and Desi. This little seen picture is actually better than it has any right to be. That's because of a really good cast in addition to Edward G Robinson. Peter Graves is a co-star of this one though the credits do not show it. There is Milburn Stone(Doc -Gunsmoke), Russell Johnson(Professor Gilligan's Island), and some others I recognized.

The story is different, with Robinson in his usual mob persona only this time he starts the movie in death row in line for the electric chair. Peter Graves is there with him. There's more, but what is different is that there's $200,000 dollars that has been stolen. The mob wants to break out these guys so they can get the money which can't be gotten without springing these people. Robinson's Girlfriend is actually the brains behind the breakout (not the usual plot here).

When the breakout is successful and they get away pretty well (Graves, and Robinson) though letting everyone on death row out keeps the police busy. Robinson's girlfriend has a safe house set up for them. Trouble is Graves whose the key to the money gets wounded by a gun shot during the escape. This wound will eventually lead the cops to the safe house.

While the print on you tube of this is pretty rough, and the director is from Argentina which means RKO hired them for peanuts, the film actually turns out better than I expected. It is one of those rarely run films that's worth catching. The ending is not one of heros and Robinson is totally ruthless except with his girlfriend. The ending is not pretty but then the title indicates that. Being a short 80 minutes benefits the film as it gets a lot done in a hurry and there is little time for the viewer to be bored.

Incarcerated gangster Vincent Canelli (Edward G. Robinson) is on death row, just minutes from being put into the electric chair. makes a daring escape from prison with bank robber death row inmate Peter Graves and takes a bunch of hostages with him, holding up in a large warehouse with a prison guard's daughter, the prison chaplain, prison doctor and one of the guards held for security purposes. Robinson's moll (Jean Parker in a rare tough broad role) has arranged for one of the guards to believe that their daughter (Sylvia Findley) has been kidnapped, leading to the events that arrange Robinson's daring escape. As the law closes in on the warehouse, the scene gets tense with several of the hostages threatened with death and the chaplain (Milburn Stone) offering his life to save the others. However, the twists and turns of this low budget film noir leads to a nasty shoot-out where Graves begins to reveal feelings for Findley and realizes that while his life is toast anyway, he's got to find a way to prevent Robinson from killing her.

There's not much time for character development in these fast made thrillers, but a few aspects of the film stand out in giving even the criminals a human side that brings on a little bit of empathy for them, particularly in the final scene between Robinson and Parker. With no words, the love between them (or at least from Robinson towards the hard looking Parker) becomes clear, and the camera holds on them for just a bit longer before the twists come at the end to unpredictably wrap up this hostage situation. Yes, this could definitely be another variation of "The Petrified Forest" or "The Desperate Hours" or "The Night Holds Terror", but a tight script, fantastic camera work and desperate performances from Robinson and Graves, as well as a saintly performance by Stone, makes this unique in its own way. Parker, best known for her 1930's ingenue roles ("Little Women", "Lady For a Day", "Sequoia"), is very interesting in her tough gal part, having little to say outside her big opening scene, but when she does speak, being a total contrast to her image from those movies. Her final scene had me choked up to say the least, and the shocking ending made me exclaim out loud, "Wow!", for a twist I did not see coming.

....that's the way this movie hits you!! For all people who think that Edward G. Robinson's 1950s movies were only rehashes of his earlier hits - then they just haven't seen this film!! Robinson has an explosive performance in him as the brutal Vince Cannelli (the way Little Caesar may have ended up if he had lived)!!! And something you don't see every day - Jean Parker (she of the sentimental "Little Women" and "Sequoia") playing Cannelli's hardened gun moll and the one who masterminds the last minute escape!!

Like caged animals, the prisoners pace their cells to the singing lament of "Black Tuesday". Vicious thug Cannelli is due to be executed that morning, along with another prisoner (Peter Graves) who has $200,000 hidden away in a fool proof hiding place!! But Cannelli is not looking nervous - his girl has hatched an escape plan which includes kidnapping the daughter of one of the guards over seeing the execution so he has no choice but to fall in with the plan. Which also includes taking Manning along as Cannelli hopes to get his hands on that hidden loot. One by one people are appalled by Vince's psychotic behaviour - leaving most of the people who helped him escape by the side of the road with only a lonely gun to help them in a shootout to the death when they are captured by police!! By the time they arrive at the hideout, the kidnapped daughter finds her father has already been killed and when Cannelli springs the old "if you don't give us our demands, a person is going to be killed every half hour"!! - from what the movie has revealed, you know he is not joking!! Problems start when Manning is shot and when forced to leave his sick bed to retrieve the money from a safety deposit box, leaves his calling card - a bloody finger print on the desk!! The finale features a blazing shoot out between the police and the gangsters, with innocent people fleeing flying bullets (not always successfully) - almost out bigging "The Big House"!!

Highly Recommended!!

This is not film noir and it is nor much of a crime drama, either It is just a waste of time for a large cast of fine B-movie character actors, most of them miscast.

Milburn Stone is an unfriendly Catholic priest, Vic Perrin is an alcoholic doctor, Lee Aaakers (the unappealing "Rusty" from the soul-less 1950s version of Rin-Tin-Tin) is a fat kid with a loud mouth, Frank Ferguson is a spineless police inspector, and Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick) is a cowardly newspaper reporter. The large cast of character actors, all wearing suits and fedoras, also includes William Schallert, Ray Bennett, Franklyn Farnum, and Simon Scott, most of whom had better small parts in TV series like "Perry Mason," "Bonanza," and "The Twilight Zone." There is a whole lot of hostage-taking, but everyone swaps clothes and ends up dressed about the same and because there is very little dialogue and few facial closeups, when the shooting starts, which it does early on, i could not tell tell the actors apart and there are so many fatalities, it was impossible to know or care who lived or or how they died.

As for the ostensible leads, well, Peter Graves is a psycho and Edward G. Robinson is way too old to reprise his role as Rocco.

Jean Parker (better known as Elizabeth March in "Little Women") is the only decent actor in the bunch. Everyone else is on a kill rampage or they get killed shortly after mouthing a variation on the same repetitious monologue about wanting to live as long as they can.

If you want to see lots of killing, watch Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" -- at least you will get to know the characters before they get shot up.

This one is a loser. I gave it three stars rather than one only because there as a bit of cool 1950s documentary-style B-Unit footage of cars, semi-trailer trucks, ambulances, and firemen with ladders interspersed throughout.

Spoiler: Pretty much everyone ends up dead.