6 Bridges to Cross (1955)

This film is a crime drama that traces the strange relationship of a street smart hoodlum (Tony Curtis) with a straight arrow cop over 20 years. The film starts out with Sal Mineo playing adolescent hoodlum Jerry Florea in 1933, robbing street vendors of fruit with his gang and doing some nighttime breaking and entering. It is fleeing after one of these nighttime burglaries when Florea is shot by rookie cop Edward Gallagher (George Nader). Ed thought he shot an adult, and is upset when he realizes he shot a kid, plus due to his wound Jerry will never be able to have kids of his own. Being that this is during the production code era, that is as detailed as the wound description gets. The community is in an uproar over the shooting of a child, juvenile delinquent or not, but Gallagher manages to keep his job. Gallagher's guilt does cause him to strike up a friendship with Jerry that begins as Jerry is recovering in the hospital. Jerry gives Gallagher tips on crimes that help his career, and Ed tries to befriend the boy and point him in the right direction, only to be let down time and again. Both Curtis and Mineo were great in this. They really do seem to be playing the exact same character at different ages. As adult Jerry Florea, Curtis flashes that charming smile of his and plays the lying sociopath so well that even an audience should have a hard time determining when he is conscientious and when he is not. Florea can be violent when he needs to be, but mainly thieving and its thrill are his game. He doesn't even seem to enjoy the actual fruit of his theft that much. An interesting piece of trivia - Sammy Davis Jr. sings the film's theme song. It was in route to the recording studio to sing this song that he had the car accident that caused him to lose an eye.

Six Bridges to Cross is supposed to be based on the famous Brinks Payroll robbery but bears hardly the slightest resemblance to that celebrated case (for one thing the police still don't have a clue as to who the criminals were and they are still at large) which was obviously used purely as a publicity gimmick to sucker the unwary into seeing what is essentially a very, very familiar gangster yarn - in fact it is probably the oldest chestnut in the business and has been used before in scores and scores of much more worthy films than this pretentious little bit of hoke.For all the touting in the Foreword about filming in Boston, there is very little of Boston that gets onto the screen and what there is is so ordinary and un-unique the film might as well have been lensed in downtown Los Angeles.Admittedly, Pevney's direction in the street sequences with Sal Mineo is a shade more inventive than his usual humble standard and the photography has an attractive sheen, but once Curtis comes in, almost everything goes back to so-so!Mind you, there's a bit of routine action excitement, but there's also lots of talk with the stars jadedly going through their usual paces, Nader with furrowed brow, Curtis with winning smile, Jay C. Flippen laying down the law. Julie Adams has so small a part it's impossible to judge, yet the excellent girls playing Maggie the Screwball and Virginia Stewart don't figure in the end credits at all!Production values are very moderate. Pace is fair, but action climax is not much and film is lucky to get 6 out of 10.

"Six Bridges to Cross" is an entertaining crime film, but I have to tell you up front that it didn't always make sense...especially at the end of the film...and that's a bad place for the picture to let down the audience.The film begins with a young punk (Sal Mineo) getting shot by a cop after a break-in. Everyone says that 'the kid will never be able to father any kids'--meaning he must have blown his testicles off with the bullet. But this doesn't make sense for many reasons. First, the kid, Jerry Florea, becomes good friends with the cop who shot him. If someone shot off my testicles, I don't think friendship is something I would seek...even if it was my fault. Also, later in the film the guy is arrested for statutory rape. Am I missing something?!?!Regardless of how illogical the beginning is, years pass and Tony Curtis now plays the older Florea. He and the cop have a strained relationship. Although they've been friends, Florea has not stayed out of crime and now they meet mostly because Florea is a stoolie and the cop's career is blossoming because of all the crimes he solves because Florea has a big mouth. Even this sort of relationship sours over time, as Florea goes in and out of jail his whole life. By the end of the film, the cop is certain that Florea is behind a huge 2.5 million dollar heist...and how Florea comes to take responsibility for the crime is 100% unbelievable in light of the fact that he's a scum- bag.The acting is fine, the script interesting, the script...uneven. Overall, a time passer that SHOULD have and COULD have been a lot better. The ending is very frustrating.

Tony Curtis gives one of the best performances of his career as the mastermind of an armoured car robbery. This movie avoids cliches and goes straight to original character development while paying meticulous detail to the orchestration of the caper. Thoroughly absorbing from every standpoint.