Quicksand
About Quicksand
Mechanic Dan Brady takes $20 from the garage register for a date with diner waitress Vera Novak, covers the hole by pawning a watch he bought on a one-dollar installment, and is told he has 24 hours to pay $100 or face grand larceny. He mugs a drunk. Nick Dramoshag, who runs a penny arcade on Santa Monica Pier, blackmails him into stealing a car from the garage, and boss Oren Mackey then wants the car or $3,000. Dan and Vera rob the arcade; she spends half on a mink coat, and when Dan tries to settle, he strangles Mackey with the phone cord. He runs with Helen Calder, hears on a car radio that Mackey is alive, and is shot and arrested back at the pier. Helen says she will wait.
Cast & crew
More about Quicksand
Robert Smith wrote the original screenplay. Mort Briskin produced for Samuel H. Stiefel, the executive producer, and United Artists released it. AFI dates the shoot from 21 March to mid-April 1949 at General Service Studios, with Santa Monica exteriors. Hollywood Reporter items say Mickey Rooney tried to leave the film for A Ticket to Tomahawk, and Stiefel, his partner in the company, held him to the contract. Copyright LP2950, 24 March 1950.
Themes
Background
Wikipedia notes that Quicksand was Irving Pichel’s last film shortly before he was blacklisted.
Reviews
Variety’s Herm Shoenfeld called it an okay melodrama with a crime-does-not-pay moral and wrote that Rooney was competent but showed little range. Mae Tinee, in the Chicago Daily Tribune, preferred the early scenes to what she called a contrived finish. The New York Times labeled it an uninspired melodrama and quoted Dan’s line, “Boy, am I in a mess.”
Look
Lionel Lindon photographed the film, including exteriors on the old Santa Monica Pier.
Music
Louis Gruenberg wrote the score. Red Nichols and His Five Pennies perform on screen.
Notes
- Barbara Bates plays Helen Calder. Taylor Holmes plays the lawyer, Harvey. Art Smith plays Mackey.
- Red Nichols and His Five Pennies appear as themselves. Jack Elam has an uncredited bit as a bar patron.
- Boris Leven was art director. Walter Thompson edited. The track is Western Electric. AFI lists 7,106 feet on nine reels.
- The PCA certificate number is 13791.
- Jeanne Cagney plays Vera Novak.
Scenes
- Dan pawns the installment watch and an investigator gives him 24 hours.
- Nick Dramoshag, on the pier, trades silence for a car from the garage.
- Dan strangles Mackey with the telephone cord, then hears on the radio that Mackey lived.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Quicksand_clear)
Quotes
Boy, am I in a mess.
