Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

blanche-2 William Campbell, in my youth, appeared on a TV show called Cannonball that had a very catchy theme song. So catchy that we made up new lyrics to it that were about our school principle.He has several other distinctions, some as an actor, and he earned his place in the JFK saga by being married to one of JFK's girlfriends, Judith Campbell Exner.Campbell plays a locksmith, Tommy Dancer. He often hangs out at a bowling alley. One night he meets a man, Willis Trent (Berry Kroeger) who invites him to a party. After we hear the song "Let the Chips Fall Where They May" sung by Viviane Lloyd, Dancer meets Betty Turner (Karen Sharpe). They begin dating.Tommy is offered a job for $5000 if he will rent a safe deposit box, and while in the vault, make impressions for two keys to box 315. He doesn't know it at the time, but the box has $200,000 in it that Trent wants stolen. He refuses to do it until Mike Mazurki beats him up and then Betty is threatened. In a suspenseful scene, he makes impressions of the keys.Then he finds out about the money from a man named Herbie (Paul Fix) tips him off about the money and suggests that they split it.Familiar faces here, including Fix, Kroeger, Mazurki, and of course Campbell. Karen Sharpe, who played Betty, married Stanley Kramer and became a producer as well as an actress. Anita Ekberg, looking gorgeous, is on hand as Earl Farraday's (Robert Keys) girlfriend - it's Farraday who owns the safe deposit box.Despite the film being low budget, there are several interesting things about it. First, being low budget, it's filmed on the streets of Los Angeles. The sections they were in were familiar to me and made it so much fun, seeing a large Rexall Drugs, Dutch Paint, the whole ambiance of old Hollywood.The other thing is one starts to notice keys everywhere. Dancer works in a key-making establishment. He's called on by Trent to open a trunk, so he makes an impression of the lock; he makes keys for the safe deposit box, later he uses the keys to get into it - he is constantly using keys. Finally you're noticing them every time he pulls one out.Lastly, parts of the film are very Hitchcockian - one is the ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances; the other is danger in landmarks or familiar places not known for danger, as Dancer first escapes being hit by a bowling ball and then attempts escape by traversing pin-setting machines. Really terrific. Unfortunately, today we're all too familiar with danger in familiar places.Not bad for a low budget film.

Spikeopath Adapted by Burt Kennedy from the Frank Gruber novel, The Lock and the Key, Man in the Vault is a minor 50s crime flick that has somehow been lumped into the film noir encyclopedias. Andrew V. McLaglen directs and William Campbell, Karen Sharpe, Anita Ekberg and Berry Kroeger star. Story has Campbell as a locksmith who gets coerced into a deposit box theft just as Sharpe turns his head romantically.Amazingly, nothing much happens, there's a lot of talking and pouting, Campbell's teddy-boy quiff always holds court, while Kroeger tries to eat all the indoor scenery. William H. Clothier is utterly wasted on photography, only really getting to use his skills when the story enters out onto the real L.A. locations; which are actually the film's only saving grace. OK! The deposit box sequence has a modicum of suspense, the mystery element as Campbell tries to fathom out what's going on also works, but come the weak and cop-out finale you may well wish you had done the gardening instead. 5/10

Claudio Carvalho The mobster Willis Trent (Berry Kroger) is informed by one of his gangsters that the locksmith Tommy Dancer (William Campbell) is efficient and fast in his work. Willis befriends Tommy in a bowling alley and invites him to open a trunk at his home. Tommy accepts the job and then he is invited by Willis to stay in a party at his house, where he meets the wealthy Betty Turner (Karen Sharpe). Later they go to his place and Betty forgets her stole when she goes home. On the next morning, Tommy returns the fur to Betty and they date at night. Then Willis offers five thousand dollars to Tommy to make the keys of the safe deposit box no. 315 in the Hollywood Bank that belongs to the rival criminal and head of gambling Paul De Camp (James Seay) and has two hundred thousand dollars of illegal money. Tommy turns down the offer, but Willis threatens to harm Betty's face to achieve his goal."Man in the Vault" is a good film-noir but unfortunately the moralist ending ruins the story. The romance between Tommy and Betty is dated, but acceptable for a movie of the 50's. But the conclusion with Tommy giving the stolen money to a police officer is ridiculous even in those years. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Domínio dos Homens Sem Lei" ("Domain of the Men Without Law")

zardoz-13 John Wayne's production company Batjac footed the bill on director Andrew V. McLaglen's sophomore effort "Man in the Vault, and RKO Studios released it in 1956. This threadbare, black & white, quasi-noir crime thriller about a one-man bank heist provides some tense moments, an adequate cast, but it's strictly a minor item. Actually, "Man in the Vault" foreshadows director Richard Brooks' Warren Beatty heist thriller "Dollars" where the stakes were higher, the villains more menacing, and the rewards greater. Actors and actresses that had appeared in many of John Wayne's movies fleshed out the cast of "Man in the Vault," with contract labor serving behind the cameras. For example, Wayne later gave McLaglen a chance to direct him in "McLintock" in 1964, while co-writer Burt Kennedy wrote and directed a couple of Wayne's top 1960s westerns. Of course, cinematographer William H. Clothier had been on Wayne's payroll even before "Man in the Vault." Unfortunately, McLaglen, Kennedy, and Clothier cannot salvage this lackluster, low-stakes movie. A sleazy, small-fry mobster Willis Trent (Berry Kroeger of "Seven Thieves")approaches locksmith Tommy Dancer (William Campbell of "The High and the Mighty") at a bowling alley one night with a job to open an old footlocker back at his house. Tommy grabs his tools and rides with Trent to the hoodlum's house. Tommy has no problem opening the footlocker, but he smells a rat when Trent invites him to have some liquor at the party he's hosting with several good looking dames. One of them even sings the song "Let the chips fall where they may" to him. A pampered, single, 23-year-old doll in a mink stole, Betty Turner (Karen Sharpe of "The High and the Mighty"), arouses Tommy's curiosity as she stands alone in the middle of the party. Betty gets into an argument with her attorney boyfriend Earl Farraday (Robert Keys of "The High and the Mighty") while Tommy stands between them. As it turns out, Farrady has been fooling around with Paul De Camp's torpedo-breasted mistress, Flo(voluptuous Anita Ekberg of "La Dolce Vita"), but he has other reasons for attaching himself to her than her well-endowed upper torso. Primarily, he wants the number and the location of a safety deposit box in Paul De Camp's name that contains $200-thousand in cash that Trent and he want to steal.Betty doesn't know about the conspiracy between Farraday and Trent. Anyway, Tommy leaves Trent's party, finds boo-hooing Turner outside, and she lets him drive her over to his place. Eventually, Tommy gets fresh with Turner and kisses her. Turner slaps him and storms out, forgetting her mink. Later, Tommy suspects that Trent is leading him on when he asks him to make two keys to open De Camp's safety deposit box. At first, Tommy refuses to take the job despite the $5-thousand dollars tax-free that Trent is offering. "More than I make in a whole year," Tommy observes. Our clean-scrubbed protagonist initially rejects Trent's offer. "You know, Mr. Trent, I've been half expecting this since the first time I met you at the bowling alley." He adds, "The footlocker was the clincher. You didn't need a key to open it, it was already open." Finally, he points out, "You know I may do a lot of things that I shouldn't, but breaking into safety deposit boxes isn't one of them."Later, Tommy realizes that he is out of his class and income as a lowly locksmith around wealthy Betty, so the $5,000 gives him second thoughts. Reluctantly, later, Tommy takes the job because Trent threatens to turn his gargantuan, club-fisted, ex-prizefighting bodyguard Louie, Mike Mazurki, loose on Betty. In other words, if Tommy doesn't do the job, Betty won't have enough of a face to sip soup through a straw. Meanwhile, De Camp wants Trent out of town. "I'm far from an honest man," he assures Trent. "I worked by way up to the curb, you've never been able to get out of the gutter."The Duke's younger brother, Robert E. Morrison, received credit as the producer for "Man in a Vault." Scenarist Burt Kennedy adapted novelist Frank Gruber's novel is oddly structured and occasionally weirdly convoluted, as if a scene or two of important exposition were cut (it crams a lot of story into its 73-minute running time), or maybe some footage was shuffled around. Most of the film centers around Tommy Dancer, but the story opens with a long scene involving Trent that isn't really necessary. Both Betty and Trent are connected to Tommy via their association with Farraday, and mistress Flo likewise ties Farraday to the safety deposit box, own by Flo's husband, the semi-reformed gangster Paul De Camp (James Seay of "The Buccaneer"). Added to all this is Herbie (Paul Fix), yet another crook trying to muscle in on the action. "Man in a Vault" contains only a modicum of action. Perennial heavy Mike Mazurki wields his club-like fists on our hero, but nothing big happens in the way of action set-pieces. The best scenes are with Campbell when he is inside the vault, keeping his eye on the vault clerk outside while he jiggles the keys a safe deposit box. The storyline catches Tommy at a turning point in his life. He has found the woman of his dreams and he is prepared to stick his neck out for her, even if it means becoming a criminal. Ultimately, however, our conscientious protagonist decides to face the music so that he can help out his new girl friend. Campbell and Sharpe make an attractive couple. Meanwhile, the cigar-chewing Kroeger emerges as an unsavory villain, and Mexican-American Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales makes the most of his comic relief bit part as Tommy's pal who clears the fallen ten-pins at the bowling alley. Beautiful Anita Ekberg has little to do except display her feminine pulchritude."Man in the Vault" qualifies as a tolerable potboiler.