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36 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
Rooney Shows His Talent, 23 December 2005
8/10
Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

Here's an unusual film noir because it stars an actor that you wouldn't think would be in a crime film: Mickey Rooney.

But, like a lot of comedians, singers and other non-dramatic actors, Rooney could surprise you with his dramatic talents. He wasn't all Andy Hardy fluff.

Rooney was a fine, fine actor and he does a good job here in this role as a man who makes one mistake after another. Those mistakes compound into a major crime and Rooney winds up in major trouble. In fact, it's pretty amazing to watch this unfold as one small crime leads to one thing after another making things worse and worse as it goes along.

Jeanne Cagney is good as the typically-floozy blonde who is prevalent in so many of these film noirs. Barbara Bates is the wholesome good girl, but she really makes some stupid decisions late in the film, too. In other words, the three main characters are not evil people but they have major flaws.

Overall, it's an odd film of sorts and one that starts slowly but gets better and better as the story progresses. Definitely worth a look to see Rooney play this kind of role.

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30 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
See it - more than once, 27 May 2002
Author: jaykay-10

One of the best "B" pictures ever. The milieu - garage, bar, shoddy amusement park - is appropriate and effectively conveyed. Small people, big dreams, temptation, one seemingly insignificant event leading to another: believable and compelling drama, played out in glaring light and sinister shadows. Peter Lorre's quiet menace and Jeanne Cagney's worldly sleaze are particularly outstanding. Mickey Rooney may be somewhat miscast, but his performance adds notably to the rising tension - as does everything else in this fine picture.

All-time memorable moment: Bumping the gypsy fortune teller's booth in the dark arcade, setting off flashing light and jangling music.

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29 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
Andy Hardy goes rotten, 15 September 2000
7/10
Author: Anne_Sharp from USA

One of the lesser-known treasures of classic film noir, this tough little chronicle of a hapless boy taken on a criminal joy ride by his own uncontrollable lusts succeeds partly because of the brick-house design of Cornell Woolrich's original story, partly because of its ingeniously chosen cast. Pairing the still fresh-faced Mickey Rooney with the creepily worn-looking Jeanne Cagney instantly suggests corruption; the subtext that the boy is just a pawn in a weird game being played between this nasty dame and her lover (Peter Lorre, looking one drink over the line) makes the spine crawl.

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21 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Never trust a blond dame or a guy named Buzz, 11 August 2005
8/10
Author: Tom Willett (yonhope) from Central Midwest, USA

Hi, Everyone, Drama hogs... that's an anagram for Peter Lorre's character name in this excellent old movie. Peter plays the part of Nick Dramoshag.

Lots of drama from all the cast. Best bad guys here are the car dealer, Oren Mackey, played by Art Smith, and the landlady, played by Minerva Urecal. They are so rotten, but they are not in any trouble with the law.

If you are a fan of the classic cars of the 40s and 50s, there are some delightful motor carriages awaiting you in this movie. Mickey works at a garage which apparently is a dealership also. There is a line of Studebaker pickup trucks parked just behind Mickey's old jalopy when we first see his car. I believe his car is a '31 Chevy. In front of his car is a Studebaker Starlight Coupe' from about 1949.

Mickey makes one mistake in this movie. He loans $20 to a guy named Buzz who is a future Mousketeer (Jimmie Dodd). Dodd is in no rush to pay it back. Naturally Mickey has to steal some money to take the new dish out on a date. $20 for a date seems a little high when the lunch costs 40 cents. A brand new car is $3000 list price. It looks like a 1949 Mercury. I think they actually were only about $1800. Why does the Studebaker dealer sell Mercurys? It could happen.

The lunch is only 40 cents because you have to look at Jack Elam with his hair slicked down while you are eating. Jack has only one line here, but you can tell he will someday make it big when he is allowed to be less beautiful.

Mickey is very agile in this. He was about 30 when he made this film, but his character is only 26. Mickey does his own slide down a fire escape and he runs around with great speed and agility under the Santa Monica Pier. I remember him dancing in many movies and he was obviously in great physical condition.

Peter Lorre is so good just looking at someone. He had the voice of a guy who enjoyed raising bats.

Peter was very good in Casablanca.

Mickey Rooney was excellent in Bridges at Toko Ri. I bet you've never seen that. He of course was superb in Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

The car that drives off with Mick at the end of the movie is a Packard. It is probably also a 1949 model. Packard was an expensive automobile. It was a competitor with Cadillac.

It is also fun to watch this now, especially with a teen ager, so you can see what life was like before credit cards.

Tom Willett

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18 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
An auto mechanic slips deeper and deeper into the 'quicksand' of crime., 20 October 1998
10/10
Author: bux from Tecumseh ok

A great little hunk of film noir. Rooney is sympathetic, albeit immoral as the mechanic that steals $20 and slips deeper into despair as the tale moves on. Peter Lorre is despicable as the man you love to hate, the one who drives Rooney deeper into crime. This one was made after the war, as Rooney attempted to regain his box offce appeal in adult roles. A nifty flick,

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17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Wow, was I surprised, 29 October 2004
10/10
Author: jshaffer-1 from United States

This is a movie you can't leave alone. At no point did I lose interest in it, and I have never been a Mickey Rooney fan, so I wasn't expecting that much, but wow, was I surprised. This is a great story, very logical in the way it develops, and I cannot fault Mickey at all. He was great, very believable and gripping. I guess that's the word, this movie grips you. For once I really cared what was going to happen to someone in a movie. About half way through the meaning of the title flashed in my mind. Quicksand, that's what he was in, all right. And the more he struggled, the more he sank. It took an abrupt plot twist to get out of all this, but I can't complain, it held my interest to the last.

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12 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Always liked narrated films best, 22 September 2005
7/10
Author: bobbobwhite from san ramon ca

Good crime noir story with a highly energetic(what's new?) Mickey Rooney in the lead role. He also narrated the film and tied together well all loose ends. Great Santa Monica Pier chase scene at the end with a well conditioned Rooney doing all his own stunts. Top camera-work in B&W, with all the light and shadows of great noir. Peter Lorre was his terrific evil, slimy self in a small role, and Jimmy Cagney's sister Jeanne was stiffly effective as Rooney's self-centered girlfriend.

Not a wasted second in the action, and it moves along at breakneck speed as Rooney plays this 40s-50's typical noir morality tale of how criminals typically go from the first petty crime all the way to the worst crimes and finally end up in prison, but always have nice girls waiting for them when they get out.

Interesting to note that almost all his crimes were witnessed, and had the cops on him almost before he finished committing them. Not quite the case in the real world as "nobody sees anything" today and most crimes go unsolved. Don't you wish all crimes were so easily solved as in this film? It would be a very different world than the one we have.

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14 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
A Cross Between "Detour" and "The Myth of Sysiphus", 22 September 2005
8/10
Author: David (Handlinghandel) from NY, NY

We feel as if we are sinking into the quicksand as one thing after another goes wrong. This is similar to the bleak and (today) more famous "Detour." But it's almost as good.

Mickey Rooney has always been an appealing performer. He's good here but not totally plausible. If Tom Neal had been the star, It'd be a real jewel.

Jeanne Cagney is surprisingly tough as the girl Rooney falls for. It's very easy to hate her character, which is the intent of the plot. Barbara Bates is not interesting as the girl who's loved him all along. When I was a small child I saw her giggling and doing what I remember as an early version of "breaking up" as she announced prizes for contestants on "Queen for a Day." Quite some range, just like her brother! Without giving away any of the plot, just know that no matter where the protagonist turns, he gets a (usually figurative) slap in the face. He sinks deeper and deeper and nothing he does seems to lift him out of the mire.

(It also has great location shots and is a superb look at honky-tonk in the middle of the last century.)

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14 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
A crunchy little B movie with a candied film noir coating but a melodrama center., 4 July 2005
6/10
Author: Ham_and_Egger from Indianapolis, Indiana

Quicksand is immediately at pains to establish that auto-mechanic Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney) is a *very* average guy, there's no monotone narrator to say, "Be careful or this may happen to you" but there might as well be. The first fifteen minutes or so drag along interminably through a lunch-counter and a mechanic shot before Dan "borrows" a twenty from the register to take a blonde out dancing, thus beginning a brief but intense criminal career.

Rooney is surprisingly convincing as the dissatisfied, and really quite dishonest, mechanic. He doesn't try anything cute, playing this role as straight as any I've ever seen out of him (admittedly not much), though his "inner monologue" narration rapidly wears out its welcome. Despite his being set up as an everyman character, I found him pleasingly sneaky, cowardly, and unlikeable.

The afore-mentioned blonde is Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney). Brady has already been provided with a self-sacrificing brunette good girl that he's trying to get rid of, so right away you know that the only question you've got to answer about the blonde Vera is whether she's a broad, a dame, a floozie, or a hussy (turns out she's two of the four, but I'll let you find out which). Cagney is really only passable as the manipulative, materialistic, femme fatale.

Peter Lorre shows up, barely, as Nick, the crooked owner of a penny arcade where Vera once worked. Lorre and Rooney engage in some minor fisticuffs over Cagney (who must have been thinking that her brother could take them both with one hand tied behind his back).

After the tepid opening Quicksand actually does build up a decent head of steam as Dan Brady sinks deeper and deeper into the eponymous morass. It's clearly a written-to-order morality play but it moves quickly, punches hard enough to get the job done, and isn't entirely unbelievable. In the end melodrama beats film noir by a nose, or is it a couple furlongs? I couldn't help thinking Quicksand zigged when it should have zagged.

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14 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Rooney does melodrama, 28 May 2005
6/10
Author: djensen1 from northern Indiana

Wow. Mickey Rooney and Peter Lorre. Together. And with Jimmie from the Mickey Mouse Club *and* Jack Elam! I didn't know what to expect. In case you were wondering, Rooney proves he can act in the opening scenes. He's a car mechanic looking to get in good with the new waitress at the diner, but he's flat broke until tomorrow. "Danny" starts down a slippery slope by copping a few bucks from the till at work, then lets Vera (Jeanne Cagney) steer him wrong by way of a game arcade owned by her former employer, Nick (Lorre). Nick makes the creepiest possible arcade owner, and Vera pines darkly for a mink coat in a store window. These are not good people to fall in with.

While the film starts out pretty cleverly, the coincidences start to pile up fast and furious. Danny's little white theft festers into a mugging, grand theft auto, a burglary, and worse. The wrong people keep finding out too much about Danny's activities, and soon the cops are crawling all over him.

The acting is quite good, and the direction and pacing are clean. But the wild improbabilities that have piled up threaten to topple the whole house of cards, from the convenient witnesses to the convenient cops to the convenient car trouble. Remember: Danny is an auto mechanic. He can't keep his own car in running condition? Still, it's a treat to see Rooney in such desperate straits. For those looking for Raymond Chandler, tho, this isn't noir; it's still just melodrama.

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