Violent Saturday is a 1955 American crime drama directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Victor Mature, Lee Marvin, Richard Egan and Stephen McNally. The film, set in a mining town, describes the planning for a bank robbery and how it became enmeshed with the personal lives of the townspeople.

Prominent actors Sylvia Sidney and Ernest Borgnine are in supporting roles. Unlike many crime movies of the era, Violent Saturday was filmed in color, and on location in Bisbee, Arizona.

Plot Summary

Harper (McNally) is a bank robber posing as a traveling salesman. He arrives in town, soon to be joined by Dill (Martin) and Chapman (J. Carrol Naish).

The villains are idiosyncratic. Early in the film, Dill sets the tone by stepping on the hand of a boy who gets in his way. He is constantly using an inhaler, indicating a sinus problem or addiction.

Boyd Fairchild (Egan) is manager of the local coal mine, troubled by his philandering wife. He is considering an affair with a nurse (Virginia Leith). His associate Shelley Martin (Mature) has a happy home life, but is troubled by a son who believes that he is a coward because he did not serve in World War II.

A subplot involves the bank manager (Tommy Noonan) and a librarian (Sidney), whose lives interact with the robbery.

Martin is trapped on a farm with an Amish family. With the help of the father (Borgnine) he defeats the crooks single handedly. That proves his courage to his son.

The lives of others, including Fairchild, are soon changed by the bank robbery as it gets underway in a violent climax. Fairchild's wife is slain, and the nurse is available to comfort him in his bereavement.

Critical reception

The New York Times did not approve of the violence of the movie. Critic Bosley Crowther called the movie an "unedifying spectacle," while praising the performance of Lee Marvin as a hood "so icily evil he is funny." Borgnine's performance was panned as "a joke."

More recent reviewers have been favorable. In a 2008 article, the Village Voice called it "the reigning king of Southwester noir." The New York Press said "Violent Saturday seems rooted in tradition, but as an exciting pulp story with a profound center, it manages to break all the rules."

External links

• New York Times review
• Village Voice article