Mickey Rooney was just off a major mid-career uptick (showy support in the pricey BRIDGES OF TOKO-RI/’54; outstanding lead in the excellent B-pic DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD /’54*) when he tossed any residual goodwill away in this radioactive farce. There’s nothing wrong with the basic story idea (from Blake Edwards who scripted CROOKED) which puts Rooney & dominating partner Robert Strauss on a desert uranium hunt, unaware they’ve strayed into a nuclear test site on countdown lock. Yikes! And when Strauss goes into town to make a land claim (his Geiger counter is going nuts), Mickey’s left guarding the site as the bomb blows. Miraculously, he survives: suddenly a radioactive scientific curiosity & monetizable commodity. With rich possibilities for comic development, Leslie H. Martinson, Benedict Freedman & John Fenton Murray (direction & scripters) seem in a contest to do as little as possible with the situation. And what they do come up with are standard gags that could fit just about any situation. A shame since both Rooney & Strauss play well together, largely cut back on the usual forced mugging and we even get a chance to see Mick’s very attraction wife #4 (of 7), Elaine Devry, charming as his playfully sympathetic nurse. (Plus, one very good joke that sure sounds like echt Blake Edwards: Mickey’s eating a peanut-butter, banana & pickle sandwich as the blast hits . . . and still eating it when rescued, now toasted.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Too little known, DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD is a psychologically sharp bank heist pic with Rooney leading an unusually fine B-list cast. Don’t be put off by an early bit of subpar rear-projection racing footage, the rest of Richard Quine’s direction is uncommonly fine. (And note how they dramatically use that cool below ground-level car garage. Too weird not to have been a real place.)
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