This crap sandwich reminded me more of Red Zone Cuba than anything else. Washed out B&W film stock, stilted dialog that was badly looped/dubbed in the studio. You name the mistake and this film has it. The henchman's name is actually "Adolph".There is just too much wrong with this to name it all. The horrible public domain musical score is positively Corman-esque. And if your dialog is this awful, why not just record it while filming and get it over with? Don't go to the studio and loop it badly as well. It leaves the viewed pictures disconnected from the words heard. Not that it matters too much here.Matthau just thought he'd try his hand at directing. It was a serious mistake he never repeated. And we are all thankful for that. You'd have to be a big time Matthau fan to give this claptrap even a moment of your time. I know I'm sorry I did.

Gangster Story (1958) * (out of 4) Walter Matthau directed this film, his only stint in the director's chair. Matthau plays a hardened bank robber/cop killer who tries to hide in a small town but mafia dudes come chasing him. The plot of this film really makes no sense and the performances are all rather bad. This is an ultra low budget film that seems to have been filmed without sound and then later dubbed in. I'd recommend everyone watch this film at least once to see the dumbest bank heist in the history of film.Thankfully Walter went back to acting.

Never viewed this film until I noticed it showing on TCM and found out that Walter Matthau directed and also acted in this film as Jack Martin. Jack Martin is a crook who is very calm, bold and deadly with a gun in his hand. He pulls off a bank robbery and the cops are closing in on him and he decides to go into a Public Library and meets a blonde librarian named Carol Grace, (Carol Logan) while he is dodging the police, he hits on Carol Logan and she becomes very interested in him immediately, even when Jack tells her he is bank robber. There are many hold ups and plenty of cops are killed and Jack still takes on more hold ups for millions of dollars. This is not a bad film for 1960 and is great to see some of the old 1960 automobiles being driven around. Enjoy

Thanks to Turner Classic Movies, this rarely seen film was available on a schedule with other Walter Matthau vehicles. Mr. Matthau was both the star and the director ( his only effort ).It has all the elements of a great crime drama. It has a minimalist style that reflects the very limited shooting budget. Perhaps that was not the intention when it was created, but it provides something which great American movies often have -- an authentic background for the authentic characters created ....It also seems evident that in his later career, Mr. Matthau had become something many actors aspire to being -- a movie star -- but in this strange and somewhat haunting crime story, he's immersed in the part of the ne'er-do-well hoodlum. He's not a very nice fellow, but he's got a certain charm and "panache" on screen. Perhaps this is the result of his being responsible for the whole effort, or perhaps he really enjoyed the rather villainous and amoral character of Jack Martin. Whatever the viewer decides about that question, this movie entertains in a thoughtful way, giving the viewer a definite feeling of "being there".It's true that there are some elements of the plot which seem to be, now, rather hackneyed. That's the reason it did not receive a vote of eight or nine. But from beginning to the end, the minimalist style allows the plot to envelop the characters and to support them.Criminals have their own code, it is true. This is not a story about a good guy gone bad, in my opinion. He's a rake and an opportunist, this Jack Martin. Matthau is superb in this role. Carol Grace adds a lot to the haunting feeling that permeates this film, partly because it isn't so easy to see what her character's motivations are as the plot goes on. She portrays a woman of deep longings overshadowed by a deeper loneliness. That alone says a lot about the era, the tail end of the Eisenhower years, and the big cars and big landscapes which abound only add to that sense of 'something missing.' Perhaps TCM will be kind enough to run it again in a more favorable time slot for all the fans of great but austere crime drama. It's a winner in that regard. It doesn't fit the usual concepts of "film noir," I suppose, but it is about what crime does to those who choose to follow its ways. Matthau was not, perhaps, reaching for greatness in this effort but he found it anyway. Seven out of ten for his acting and seven out of ten for his directing.