This was a very enjoyable low budget B type Film Noir with a great Mickey Rooney as The Looser, a car mechanic
who can't resist The Pussy and gets snared in a quagmire of violence and crime. Basic stuff for many a Noir and nothing
more is needed really as we all can understand these mechanisms that leads to disaster, sex, dames and money.
For some reason Mickey Rooney, mostly known for his many (irritating or even obnoxious) children film roles didn't
like this film on his resumé which feels weird as it clearly must be one of the best roles he ever did, and one of his best films.
This Film Noir are one of the many, many that has been uploaded to Youtube and can be watched in streaming video, and
this film was in a fine quality and could be watched on a big TV screen.

These old films are supposed to be in the Public Domain were the copyright rights haven't been renewed (haven't or
hasn't? Aaaargh, i've no clue as my english is poor). But if a company like Olive Films put money and effort in restorating
one of these, could someone then just rip that edition of the film and put it on Youtube without infringement ?

Quicksand - a tragi-comical morality tale Noir

Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney) works as a garage mechanic at The Mackey Motor, when he sees The Dame, The Broad,
The Femme Fatale working at his lunch joint - her name is Vera and she's played by Jeanne Cagney, yeah, the sister of ...
He asks her out and need some money, so he borrows a 20 USD bill from the Garage cash-register, which he intends
to secretely pay back next day when has collected a debt from a friend. No big deal, or?
Well, a small step that leads to catastrophy. After getting it on with the girl, who really is no Bad Femme Fatale as she's
quite nice, he finds out that his "friend" won't pay back his loan to Dan. So what to do as the 20 USD need to be back
in the cash-register ? The Answer is step 2 to sink deeper into the quicksand, he buys a luxury wrist-watch on payment plan
with just a small deposit and then goes to the nearest pawnshop and pawns it.

Dan and Vera

He returns the 20 USD to Mackey Motor, but ... the astrological constellations aren't on Dans side or something and a
detective hired by the Watch Shop turns up and tells Dan that pawning the watch are forbidden due to the payment plan
contract, and that he's to pay the full 100 USD for the watch within a day or jail is waiting.
So, now poor Mickey has to get 100 USD somehow. Answer is step 3 to Misery - to rob a drunken man with a fat
wallet. Dan pays the 100 USD for the watch, But, this time a shady owner of a Game Arcade in the shape of the legendary
Peter Lorre has got a whiff of Dans affairs and demands a car from Mackeys Motor to keep his mouth shut, etc. etc.
The 20 USD debt has soon grown to 3000 USD and Dan's deepdown in Mackeys pit.

What will happen to poor Dan? Dead or Alive at the end? Ha, ha, i loved this little gem of a Noir and Micke's fine in the
role as Dan Brady. He's fit and agile and the scene were he flips out and attacks his boss felt very true, it came fast and
surprised me in a good way. Peter Lorre in a small part was good as usual and the Cagney sister as Vera also, her role
character not really Bad but slightly sociopathic .... "Give me back my coat" ... she mostly cares about her flashy fur.
Barbara Bates as the mousy Helen was quite bad however, stiff as a stick. The Chase at the Santa Monica pier at the end
was GREAT and that much due to the above mentioned physical abilities of Mickey Rooney, he surely was fit and fast.
And, that Game Arcade, wow, it really would've been interesting to get a closer look at the machines Lorre had there