To be fair, I’ve never seen this film and chances are I never will. I just have to wonder what was going on in the casting director’s head when the decision was made to cast little and loveable Mickey Rooney in the role of a hardened blood thirsty criminal – “the deadliest killer of all time” - mind you, should you choose to believe the poster hype.
While a talented artist did his/her best to illustrate Mickey Rooney shaking a blazing sub-machine gun at some unfortunate (perhaps they did something as innocent as give him the wrong change), it just doesn’t work here - at least not for me. I just know Rooney so well as a song and dance man that in my mind’s eye he looks like a middle aged star on a shoot break playing with a prop from Some Like It Hot.
The artist was slipping a bit with his/her portrait of the great actress Carolyn Jones. In this poster, she looks more like an angry drag queen that has learned how to work a sawed off shotgun in the back parking lot of an Arkansas truck stop. While an angry drag queen with a sawed off shotgun isn’t someone I would want to run into at the SuperFresh, her poster representation just doesn’t instill a sense of intimidation here. After looking more thoroughly at this poster, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that two different artists may have worked on it each responsible for one of the leads.
The poster suggests that “Baby Face Nelson” not be viewed unless “your nerves are bulletproof”. OK, finding that hard to believe as well, but stranger things have happened. In fact, interestingly enough, this film was highly praised on IMDB.com.
While a talented artist did his/her best to illustrate Mickey Rooney shaking a blazing sub-machine gun at some unfortunate (perhaps they did something as innocent as give him the wrong change), it just doesn’t work here - at least not for me. I just know Rooney so well as a song and dance man that in my mind’s eye he looks like a middle aged star on a shoot break playing with a prop from Some Like It Hot.
The artist was slipping a bit with his/her portrait of the great actress Carolyn Jones. In this poster, she looks more like an angry drag queen that has learned how to work a sawed off shotgun in the back parking lot of an Arkansas truck stop. While an angry drag queen with a sawed off shotgun isn’t someone I would want to run into at the SuperFresh, her poster representation just doesn’t instill a sense of intimidation here. After looking more thoroughly at this poster, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that two different artists may have worked on it each responsible for one of the leads.
The poster suggests that “Baby Face Nelson” not be viewed unless “your nerves are bulletproof”. OK, finding that hard to believe as well, but stranger things have happened. In fact, interestingly enough, this film was highly praised on IMDB.com.
Perhaps I need to bundle up my bulletproof nerves and see if it’s available on Netflix. After all, maybe in 1957, Mickey just needed to kick some ass – gangsta style…
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1 comment:
Hilarious and almost beyond belief! I always thought Mickey Rooney was a bit salacious but this casts him a whole new, and much darker, light. The bit about the drag queen is dead on too. Are sure that's Carolyn Jones?
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