The Burglar

From its inventive opening featuring fictional news reels to its final chase through an amusement park, director Paul Wendkos and his crew appear to have had a ball making The Burglar. Creative camera angles (from inside an empty safe, over the shoulder of a faceless man) and frenetic film editing (jump cuts, rapid cross-cutting) bring the film to life in a way that David Goodis’s script (based on his own novel) barely deserves. Dan Duryea is cast against type as a pensive, laconic professional burglar named Nat Harbin whose team comprises two bickering sidekicks and blond bombshell Gladden (Jayne Mansfield) whom Nat practically raised as a kid sister. After stealing an emerald necklace from the home of wealthy heiress and spiritualist Sister Sara (Phoebe MacKay), the gang splits up to avoid not only law enforcement but a pair of suspicious characters who will do just about anything to get their hands on the jewels.