The Big Switch Up-Robert Mitchum And Jane Greer’s The Big Steal

 

 

 

 

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Big Steal, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, directed by Don Siegel, 1949

 

No question the later actor Robert Mitchum was built for heavy lifting, was built to take a punch and give a few too with those big broad shoulders and that jutted-jaw. No question also that he would not lack for a little companionship under the sheets if it came to that (and it would) from the ladies drawn to guys with dangerous eyes and dangerous thoughts (bedroom eyes to the ladies and you can figure out the thoughts yourself because after all I don’t want to get in trouble with Will Hays’ Hollywood censorship operation even fifty plus years later). Yeah back in the 1940s and 1950s, maybe later too, old Robert gave as good as he got as the film under review, The Big Steal, demonstrates. Although this effort is miles below his previous classic performance with Jane Greer as the gun-simple mobster’s girl in Out of The Past.     

Of course in Out Of The Past Jane Greer was nothing but a fetching if trigger-happy gangster’s girl femme fatale who has that mobster (played by a young Kirk Douglas) and a hard-nosed P.I. (played by Mitchum) mumbling to themselves (and liking it) before she lower the trigger on the pair (and who knows who else on her way up in the world0. The whole film was a thing of beauty as they all rush like hell to their twisted fates seemingly incapable of avoiding some grim end. Here the pace as befits a film using the backdrop of Mexico as its locale is slower, the game for mere filthy lucre rather than lust, power, and oh yeah, filthy lucre.

Here’s how it played out and once you know that play you know that old Mitchum was glad as hell that he drew this ending rather than the couple of slugs he earned in Out of the Past for his efforts. Seems this grifter named Fiske, a guy who thought he knew all the angles stepped up his game a bit and robbed a U.S. Army payroll (a big payout of 300, 000 dollars by the way) leaving a certain Army officer-in-charge holding the bag. Leaving Duke holding the bag (Mitchum’s role). Like I said Duke/Mitchum wasn’t built to take the fall no matter what the situation looked like at the beginning. Back then, now too probably, robbing anything from the Army was going to cause waves and so Duke was on the trail of Fiske into sunny Mexico to get the loot back. One way or another. Along the way he ran into Joan, a good looking gringa who knows Spanish played by that previously mentioned Jane Greer. Joan had her own axe to grind with Fiske since he sweet-talked her out of a couple of grand before he blew town on her.             

Eventually Duke and Joan crossed paths in their respective hunts for the grifter who as it turned out was heading into the interior of Mexico to fence the 300k he robbed from Duke since Army dough was too hot to handle in the States. But Duke and Joan were not the only ones looking for the lost el dorado a certain Captain Blake, U.S. Army and Duke’s boss, was looking for him to take the rap, and the dough. Blake figured that the robbery was an “inside job” and Duke was down south of the border looking for his payoff. So we had Duke (and after some not so subtle verbal foreplay with all kinds of meaningful looks and repartee between the pair a now smitten Joan and Duke too) chasing Fiske and Blake chasing then both in dramatic car chases and sleigh-of-hands until Fiske got to the “max daddy” fence who took a big chunk of dough for taking big risks. But just as the deal was being consummated Duke (and don’t forget Joan okay) and Blake showed up. Turned out Blake had a more than passing interest in his now exposed confederate Fiske. But justice, rough Mexican justice, maybe rough Army justice too boot won out in the end the good guys, Duke and Joan, won.     

Still I, all the way through the film. kept silently urging Duke to be careful around a woman previously known to be a trite bit gun crazy.