Criss Cross Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Criss Cross Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson May 13, 2020

Robert Siodmak was a highly prolific director, a contemporary of Fritz Lang's, and one of the fathers of modern film noir. His 1949 crime melodrama Criss Cross is a potboiler set in Los Angeles where Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster; The Killers, Sorry, Wrong Number), a tough yet lonely drifter, wants to rekindle a short-lived marriage he had with Anna (Yvonne De Carlo; Brute Force), a beautiful hoodwinking dame. Steve has been away from the city for a year and becomes disgruntled when he learns Anna has wed Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea; Scarlet Street), head honcho of a small gang. LAPD Det. Pete Ramirez (Stephen McNally) is a chum of Steve's and tries to persuade him that getting involved with Anna again isn't such a good idea. Slim has finagled himself to big bucks and Steve realizes he needs to do the same to "earn" Anna back. Steve works as a security guard at local bank and also drives an armored truck. He's conflicted since as much as he wants to win Anna all over again, he'll need mob help to seize the money bags. Can Steve somehow pull off the heist, give Slim and his outfit their share, and bring Anna back to him?

Criss Cross is gorgeously photographed in black and white by cinematographer Franz (Frank) Planer (Letter from an Unknown Woman). he precisely captures the monochrome and chiaroscuro hues in practically every shot. Planer also frames an abundant shots in a depth of field that recalls Gregg Toland's wondrous deep focus compositions in John Ford's very underrated The Long Voyage Home (1940). (Screenshot #s 14 and 15 in the barroom recall the focal length Toland lensed.) Additionally, Planer basks Yvonne De Carlo in a "fetishized lighting" that's akin to the way Josef von Sternberg lit Marlene Dietrich. (Or, the way other filmmakers lit Rita Hayworth.) De Carlo is Criss Cross's scheming femme fatale and she's bewitching to watch throughout the picture.

Criss Cross has a flashback structure that's reminiscent of Siodmak's own The Killers (1946) and even Citizen Kane. Long dissolves punctuate the time cuts as the audience witnesses Steve and Anna's recent past. The flashbacks confounded the movie's original reviewers but I cite it as a major strength courtesy of Siodmak and editor Ted J. Kent. The film's main stumbling block is that the story's ideas are only half-baked, which leave some important characters thinly developed. Marjory Adams, a longtime film critic for the-then Boston Daily Globe, felt the same way about the story but for a different reason: "Criss Cross should have been a more powerful picture than it is, and I suggest that the reason it gives you no emotional kick is that the scenario is so confused." Dan Duryea's mafia don, for example, is so one-dimensional that the audience can't find a trace of sympathy for him (nor is any developed in his character). So while Criss Cross is stylistically a crowd pleaser for the classic noir fan, some story elements and secondary characters are left in the dark.

Criss Cross Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout Select has released Criss Cross (#85 in the sublabel's catalog) with a DI that's advertised as a new 4K scan of the original nitrate negative. Appearing in its original exhibition ratio of around 1.37:1, Criss Cross looks very clean with excellent grayscale and inky blacks. This seems a most pleasing presentation but up until the scene at Union Depot in the middle of the film, the image is considerably de-grained. It appears a bit soft and doesn't have a thick texture that would make it look richly filmic. French label Elephant Films' Region B BD-25 has a lower encode and more scratches than Shout's (based on my research) but it retains the organic grain. Shout has transferred this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 at a mean video bitrate of 32000 kbps. My video score is 3.75/5.00.

The 84-minute feature comes accompanied with a dozen chapters.

Criss Cross Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The sole sound track Shout supplies is a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1565 kbps, 24-bit). The bass register is solid and audiological defects are absent. Dialogue is crisp and discernible. Car engine noises and gunshots display decent range along the fronts. The very fine score was composed by Miklós Rózsa, maestro of both films noir and Biblical/sword-and-sandals epics. Surprisingly, no commercial release of his score has ever been made available (not even on compilations)

The optional English SDH are displayed in yellow with a readable font.

Criss Cross Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Commentary by Film Historian Jim Hemphill - Hemphill is an über enthusiast of Robert Siodmak's body of work and can find something to appreciate in every film the noir master made (not just in that genre). He considers Criss Cross not only Siodmak's best movie but also the greatest noir ever made. While I have some disagreements with Hemphill over Criss Cross, this commentary track is a clinical master class on that film and its connections to other Siodmak pictures. In English, not subtitled.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:19, upconverted to 1080i) - an unrestored full-frame original trailer for Criss Cross that contains scratches and artifacts. Universal included it on its 2004 DVD which is otherwise bare-bones.

• Still Gallery (14:08, 1080p) - this slide show presents 150 photographs both during the filming of Criss Cross and for the studio's ad campaign. The snapshots include Siodmak, De Carlo, Duryea, McNally, Napier, and several other actors. Shout likely pulled these from the Universal archives and collectors' bins. It has to be one of Shout's longest galleries and in quantity, too.

• Poster and Lobby Card Still Gallery (6:09, 1080p) - another slide show comprising about sixty-five distinct images in both color and black and white. These display the promotion and publicity of Criss Cross as they appeared in exhibitor manuals, newspapers, and theater lobbies. There are also some very fine drawings based on ad shots from the film that are more artistic than a lot of storyboards. Materials are from US and some overseas marketing campaigns. Shout has slowed the down normal speed of this presentation so the viewer can better appreciate each individual still.

Criss Cross Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Filmmaker and historian Jim Hemphill's gushing praise of Criss Cross is appreciated by me but I wouldn't elevate it to the very elite league of noir masterworks. Hemphill makes some passing references to Fritz Lang but doesn't explain Criss Cross's artistic merits to say The Big Heat (1953) or a number of others Lang directed in the Forties and Fifties. Also, I'm particularly high on Otto Preminger's Laura (1944) and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950). Hemphill also mentions Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955), which I deem a tauter and more suspenseful hardboiler. That said, I do like and admire a lot of cinematographic techniques and performances in Criss Cross and still consider it very good. Eureka' Masters of Cinema edition will be released next month. It will not contain, however, Hemphill's terrific feature-length audio essay or the very extensive still galleries, which makes Shout's package a pretty worth complementary edition. The 4K scanned transfer has some DNR issues that hopefully won't be overly prevalent on the Eureka. DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED for fans of Lancaster and Siodmak.