... because TIerney was such a seemingly tortured soul and his own worst enemy that he really seemed to understand the most memorable characters that he played. His drunken brawling destroyed his movie career in less than ten years. Once he called the police and told them there was a fight in a bar and they needed to come break it up. There wasn't, Tierney just wanted some fist to cuffs with some cops. In the 1970s his girlfriend died from a fall from a high rise window. Tierney was there and told the police that as he had entered the apartment she had just jumped out of the window, seemingly for no reason. Charges were never filed. But I digress.
The point is that here Tierney plays the brooding violent seemingly tormented hoodlum Vincent Lubeck, into far more nefarious stuff than Tierney ever was, but Tierney has the titular character's mood and mentality down pat. VInce is somewhat enigmatic with few words. It is with posture and factial expressions that you come to know this character.
The first part of the film is almost in documentary style. It talks about Vincent's ride through the revolving door of the criminal justice system with his crimes elevating in gravity with his age. Finally at age 25 he is sentenced to 5-10 in the pen for armed robbery. At his parole hearing after 5 of those 10 years, the parole board can't think of why they should loose this guy on the public. But then his gray haired mama enters and after she slings enough chicken soup, cliches, and mixed metaphors at the board she apparently convinces (confuses???) the board into letting Vince go.
But you might as well meet the new VInce, same as the old Vince. He feels the world owes him something because of his impoverished upbringing, living next to the city dump as a kid. But his little brother (and this actually IS Tierney's little brother folks) doesn't seem to have any of Vince's hardness, is enterprising, and has opened a gas station and gives Vince a job, which he needs to stay out on parole.
But Vince is busy eyeing the things he can't have and that he wants. One is his kid brother's fiancee, Rosa. The other is the contents of the bank across from the gas station where he works. And this is where he plans a rather intricate bank hold-up. This is where low budget Eagle-Lion excelled, what they couldn't afford in really big name stars - TIerney is the only one in this film - they spent on rather clever plots.
Tierney gets to show a bit of range here. He even shows fear and regret, although in small doses. And the end of the film is quite ironic. I would recommend this little film.
