Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

bkoganbing For a chance to look at Atlantic City in the Fifties before the casinos moved in The Burglar is the film for you. Dan Duryea stars in this small B film from Columbia as a professional burglar looking to make a big score with a necklace robbed from a fake spiritualist.Duryea's team consists of Peter Capell jewelry expert, Mickey Shaughnessy muscle and hormones, and Jayne Mansfield who gives his hormones their exercise. Jayne's kind of a legacy for Duryea, if you can believe he thinks of her as kind of a kid sister. Duryea was raised by Jayne's father who was also a burglar and taught him the trade.The robbery goes, but Duryea is spotted by cop Stewart Bradley who's on the take. So he has real police as well as this crooked one looking to get in on the score.You'll note the similarities between The Burglar and The Asphalt Jungle. Both Duryea here and Sterling Hayden in the John Huston classic seem to be drawn inexorably to disaster. The difference is that Huston had that MGM shine to his film and this is a routine B film that's a cut above average.Usually when a film is held up for a couple of years for release that spells problems. But The Burglar shot in 1955 and released in 1957 is moody and atmospheric and a nifty noir feature. Jayne Mansfield gets some competition in the sex pot department from Martha Vickers best remembered as Lauren Bacall's psychotic sister in The Big Sleep. She's working with Bradley who's working on Mansfield. All I can say is nice work if you can get it.Around this time there was an attempt to make a lead of Dan Duryea, but he never really transitioned into that category. But The Burglar represents a fine bit of work from him and the rest of the cast.

tlloydesq Let's break this film into 3 scenes: the intro and robbery – good. The ending – good. The wordy bit in the middle – awful.There is a reasonable (not brilliant) story in there and the cast make a good fist of that but the overly emotional scenes which bind the story together just don't work. That the score is overpowering doesn't help.But this film could have been so much better if it was tightened up. There are some decent jazz rhythms humming away in the background which could have been worked on and the dramatisation I refer to in the middle could also have been better arranged.On the plus side, the seedy setting suits the film and I appreciate the straightforward action – no need for choreographed martial arts when a few decent punches (carefully played in the background) do the job.I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this film again but...if you have 90 minutes to kill it is worth persevering with.

deschreiber This film has a lot going for it. The opening few minutes are imaginative. Dan Duryea's acting is excellent, good enough to carry him through patches of hokey dialogue. Jayne Mansfield is nice to look at, with a pretty face, and curvaceous in a 50s sort of way before feminine beauty became thin as a rake (But what was the make-up department thinking giving her those outlandish eyebrows?). Never mind that she couldn't act. You have to enjoy the noirish atmosphere, and there are lots of outdoor scenes that catch the eye. The original music, by Sol Kaplan, is superb, or at least it would be on its own; as background it's a little too intrusive and occasionally over the top emotionally. The climax, with a deadly chase in an amusement park is a nice Hitchcock touch. Yet the movie doesn't quite work. It's hard to say exactly why. One big problem is the writing. Both the plot and the dialogue seem to have the same major flaws: at times hokey, at other times seeming to stall, leaving awkward silences or clumsy transitions. I think The Burglar might have been excellent if the studio had given more resources to developing the script, instead of leaving it in the hands of the man who wrote the novel the movie is based on.

hilljayne This is a suspenseful and actually a pretty popular movie with Dan Duryea, femme fa-tale Martha Vickers, and a young, baby faced little starlet named Jayne Mansfield (a month before her Broadway triumph). Pure 1950s film noir here. The only copies available are poor VHS copies that sell for $25.00 or $30.00 on Ebay. It's ashame because it is a good film with all around impressive performances. Definitely needs an official DVD release. Filmed in 1955 but released in 1957 to cash in on Jayne's fame. Filmed in Philadelphia about 1 hour from where Jayne lived until she was 6, and is buried at, Pen Argyl. The plot line: Petty thief Duryea and his gang of 'thugs' go on a big heist at a local wealthy woman's mansion. In comes little 'sister' to Duryea Jayne, to help size the place up and get a feel for where the jewels are. Chaos ensues and Duryea ends up sending Jayne to Atlantic City (after the heist has been pulled off) only to find out she is having an affair with (MAJOR SPOILER) the policeman investigating the robbery! Good plot line and a great nostalgic look at Baby Jayne before she went Hollywood.