Criss Cross (1949)

January 12, 1949, release date

Directed by Robert Siodmak

Screenplay by Daniel Fuchs

Based on the 1934 novel Criss Cross by Don Tracy

Music by Miklós Rózsa

Cinematography by Franz Planer

Burt Lancaster as Steve Thompson

Yvonne De Carlo as Anna Dundee

Dan Duryea as Slim Dundee

Stephen McNally as Det. Lt. Pete Ramirez

Esy Morales and His Rhumba Band

Tom Pedi as Vincent

Percy Helton as Frank

Alan Napier as Finchley

Griff Barnett as Pop

Meg Randall as Helen

Richard Long as Slade Thompson

Joan Miller as the barstool patron

Edna Holland as Mrs. Thompson

John Doucette as Walt

Marc Krah as Mort

Universal Studios

Criss Cross: Trapped Cinematically by Windows and Doors

I have seen Criss Cross twice, and the first time I saw it, I was struck immediately by its use of windows and doors to show how Steve, Anna, and Slim, the main characters, are trapped by fate. I’ll get to the windows and doors in a bit.

First, what an opening! The fly-in cinematography is like watching a series of paintings. The aerial shot behind the credits is spectacular for its blacks, whites, lights, and all its shades of gray. The fly-in isn’t exactly smooth (probably because of 1940s technology), but who cares with a cityscape that looks this gorgeous? When the camera gets closer to the parking lot, the scene cuts to the gleaming cars lined like a series of dark and white chocolates in a candy box. The dramatic music tells me this isn’t going to end well. (But then I knew that as soon as I saw Dan Duryea’s name in the credits!) And then we see Yvonne DeCarlo and Burt Lancaster embracing and hiding out in the parking lot, proclaiming their undying love for one another. The close-up of DeCarlo (bet money and chocolate on her playing the femme fatale) is especially effective, I thought. She talks right to the camera and tries to convince the viewers, too.

(This blog post about Criss Cross contains spoilers.)

This film, released almost exactly sixty-seven years ago, is about a heist and a love triangle gone horribly wrong. The fly-in opening of the film foreshadows the aerial shot of the armored truck as Steve drives it to its destination, to the meeting point where Slim Dundee and his gang are waiting. The movement in that later shot, with Steve driving the truck, is almost dizzying. In fact, these two instances in the movie seem to be the only times that the action and/or the characters are unrestrained.

When Steve first leaves the bank in the armored truck and heads toward the planned meeting point, the camera shot shows the truck leaving the bank and moving up an incline toward the street. The truck is framed by the lines of the building and the window panes, which gives the impression of being trapped. It’s another hint that events will end badly.

When Steve is in the hospital after the bank heist, his anxiety about Slim’s desire for revenge is heightened by the shadows crossing the transom window over the door and by the shadow on the hallway wall that is reflected in the mirror in Steve’s room. It turns out that Steve’s fear is well-founded: He is hijacked out of his hospital bed, but he bribes his hijacker to take him to Anna.

Steve and Anna are reunited at a bungalow in a meeting that both arranged earlier in the film. The shot of Steve at the window (framed/trapped again by the window panes) is beautiful with the ocean behind him, but Anna guesses that the driver who brought Steve is taking his money but acting as an informant for Slim. She packs, tells Steve that everyone (including her) has to take care of him- or herself (that’s the way it is in this noir world), and runs out the door. She leaves the door open, and the shot shows Steve again framed by the window behind him and now by the door frame in front of him, too. Anna runs back through the doorway into the room screaming Steve’s name, and the camera shows the open door, this time from Anna’s and Steve’s perspective: The door frame shows nothing but the black night. Then Slim appears in the doorway with a gun and shoots them both. He turns around, and this time Slim is the one framed in the doorway, listening to an approaching police siren. When he runs, we see the bodies of Anna and Steve.

What an ending! Anna’s and Steve’s bodies are arranged like a sculpture and are framed by the window, even in death. It reminded me a little bit of the Pietà by Michelangelo, but with both of the figures dead and the male and female positions in “reverse,” so to speak: Steve is the one “cradling” Anna. Slim is likely being picked up by the police off-screen, or maybe he has to go into hiding indefinitely.

No matter how you interpret the ending for Slim Dundee, all the main characters—Slim, Steve, and Anna—are trapped by fate in Criss Cross. The cinematography emphasizes the role of fate and does it beautifully.