MartinHafer "Drive a Crooked Road" is an excellent picture--written by Blake Edwards and starring Mickey Rooney. Most would probably consider it an example of film noir, though its camera-work and dialog aren't exactly typical for noir.When the story begins, you learn that Eddie (Rooney) is a small-time race car driver and mechanic. He also is rather quiet and is treated rather poorly at times due to his being so small. Because of that, he's vulnerable when a pretty lady (Dianne Foster) begins showing him a lot of attention. But she is not such a nice lady and halt ulterior motives. It seems her boyfriend (Kevn McCarthy) is a mobster and they are actually setting him up to become part of their robbery scheme! What's next? See the film.Most Mickey Rooney films, particularly those earlier in his career, are similar because Mickey plays nice guys or guys who become nice guys. Here, however, he agrees to become entangled with gangsters...gangsters who really are scum. Overall, well acted and interesting throughout...and well worth seeing. If you are interested, it's currently posted on YouTube.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** In one of his best adult roles Mickey Rooney is car mechanic and race car driver Eddie "Shorty" Shannon who gets caught up in a bank robbery not for money but for love in him impressing gun moll Barbara Mathews, Dianne Foster. It was Barbara who made a play for Eddie in getting him involved, as a wheel man, in a bank robbery that her boyfriend greasy Steve Norris, Kevin McCarthy, and his pal Harold Baker, Jack Kelly, were planning to pull off.Not at all interested in his take of $15,000.00 in the robbery but only wanting to impress Barbara Eddie against his better judgment went along with the plan only to end up getting stiffed by her in dropping him like a hot potato and planning to check out to France with her greasy boyfriend Norris. Eddie for his part heart broken as he was still carried a torch for the double-dealing Barbara and after he escaped being murdered by Baker in order to keep him from talking to the police went back, bloodies and battered after his escape, to the beach house where Norris & Barbara were and that's where the real action in the movie began.***SPOILERS*** A tour de force by Mickey Rooney who's acting in the film was so both tragic as well as touching that it should have easily earned him an Academy Award. Mickey playing against type and a lonely and shy , with girls, young man compared in real life where he romanced the most beautiful women, Lana Turner Norma Sherer Ava Gardner & Marilyn Monroe, in Hollywood Mickey made you forget who he was in the role, as a love starved schnook, that he so convincingly played.

calvinnme In his youth, and in particular his heyday over at MGM, Mickey Rooney would practically do cartwheels through his roles - he was that high energy. However, he was capable of something more than playing the energetic optimistic young man of pre-war America, and this film and 1950's Quicksand are probably the best examples of what that something was.Here he plays auto mechanic Eddie Shannon that also does some race car driving. A mob of thieves take note of his talent behind the wheel at the race track and the gang leader's girl (Dianne Foster as Barbara) flirts with Eddie and gets him to believe that she loves him. Then the thieves lower the boom on him - they proposition him to drive their getaway car during a bank robbery in return for 15000 dollars. The reason that Eddie is so needed is that the road between the bank and the main highway past the point where any road blocks would be requires fast driving over what amounts to unpaved desert terrain. Eddie's an honest guy, willing to wait and work for the things he wants, but Barbara is holding out the need for this quick money as a condition of their relationship continuing, so he gives in and agrees to the robbery plan. To him, Barbara is his treasure, not any amount of money that he could land. Little does he know she's fool's gold.Rooney is convincing as the little guy who takes it on the chin from a verbally abusive coworker at the garage who - like all bullies - doesn't seem to realize that high school is at least ten years behind him. Without saying much you can tell Rooney's character Eddie is a guy that has come to have low expectations of life, not so much abused as he is ignored and invisible to the opposite sex, and is surprised when a beautiful girl takes notice of him. Things are getting out of hand for Barbara too, as she feels deep remorse for using Eddie. Kudos also go to Kevin McCarthy and Jack Kelly as the two thieves. McCarthy's character has a very thin veneer of charm painted over what appears to be a soul of pure evil. When he kisses a rather apathetic Barbara and doesn't like her lack of enthusiasm, he warns her to never kiss him like that again in a way that will give you goosebumps. Jack Kelly's character is more of an all out wild man. You can just tell that he considers violence the most amusing pastime on earth. I'd recommend this one for Rooney's performance, but I'd downgrade this one just a little bit on lost opportunities for what could have been some fine action shots during the bank robbery scene and the getaway thereafter.

NRREX Single greatest B picture I've ever seen. Sad ending is beyond belief, yet there is comic relief in the middle that is really funny. Mickey Rooney wondered why Redbook magazine voted this best picture of the year (over the A pictures.) He should have SEEN the picture! An absolutely unforgettable movie.