The heist should have been easy. A weak bank that is in the farming belt. This small town has a half blind, half deaf security guard who is the only one working at the late night multiple thousand dollar bank counts. He is poorly armed and about to retire.  That alone spells easy with a capital E but then we throw into the mix a black jazz singer and former hard man, a racist that has just left the joint and is looking for a deal and an old man who was a cop but retired on to a limited pension and a bad case of depression. He feels this score might just be his saving grace.

Film noir took a battering in the mid 50s. Some were tired of its make up, its core components. Evolution was to be needed and adaptation was to be quick. It had to in order to find the centre of its self and be reborn before it became irrelevant. This meant it had to come up with relevant topics and themes. Sex and violence were not enough, people wanted more. Social commentary, as here was paramount. This films meditation on race is both bold for its time and clever as it doesn’t become the films central device, more its foundation.

The theme of race is also paralleled by that of age. All the three men are apart in age but the older you are the less you can be considered able to control your destiny. What I mean is that usually characters service a story but here the story has outs. Theses outs are shaped. The youngest man can shape his route but the old man is set. He is set to be at the place and at the time. This is its real revolution. Destiny is a monster that targets few but if you do not take the chances you lose. Excellent and bold in its time, yet familiar now.