Drive a Crooked Road is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

 film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 directed by Richard Quine

Richard Quine

Richard Quine was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director.Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year...

 and featuring Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

, Dianne Foster

Dianne Foster

Dianne Foster is a Canadian actress of Ukrainian descent who began her career at the age of 13 in a stage adaptation of James Barrie's What Every Woman Knows. At fourteen she began a radio career, subsequently moved to Toronto, and became one of Canada's top radio stars...

, Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy (actor)

Kevin McCarthy was an American stage, film, and television actor, who appeared in over two hundred television and film roles. For his role in the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of...

, and Jack Kelly

Jack Kelly (actor)

Jack Kelly was an American film and television actor most noted for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the TV series Maverick, which ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962...

. The drama's screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 was written by Blake Edwards

Blake Edwards

Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...

 and Richard Quine

Richard Quine

Richard Quine was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director.Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year...

 from The Wheel Man; a story by Canadian James Benson Nablo (1910-1956).

Plot

A mechanic and race car driver (Rooney) is chosen by two bank robbers to help them with a heist. The heist requires a driver with considerable driving skills to complete the task. To bait the driver into the dangerous scheme, one of the robbers uses his girlfriend (Foster) to help persuade the honest young man to assist with the crime.

Cast

• Mickey Rooney
  Mickey Rooney
  Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
  
   as Eddie Shannon
• Dianne Foster
  Dianne Foster
  Dianne Foster is a Canadian actress of Ukrainian descent who began her career at the age of 13 in a stage adaptation of James Barrie's What Every Woman Knows. At fourteen she began a radio career, subsequently moved to Toronto, and became one of Canada's top radio stars...
  
   as Barbara Mathews
• Kevin McCarthy
  Kevin McCarthy (actor)
  Kevin McCarthy was an American stage, film, and television actor, who appeared in over two hundred television and film roles. For his role in the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of...
  
   as Steve Norris
• Jack Kelly
  Jack Kelly (actor)
  Jack Kelly was an American film and television actor most noted for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the TV series Maverick, which ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962...
  
   as William McIntyre
• Harry Landers
  Harry Landers
  Harry Landers is an American character actor.Landers is probably best known for being the spokesman for Taster's Choice coffee in television commercials which aired in the 1960s and 1970s. Landers had a regular role as Dr. Ted Hoffmann, sidekick to Vince Edwards' TV doctor, Ben Casey, in the hit...
  
   as Ralph
• Jerry Paris
  Jerry Paris
  Jerry Paris was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on The Dick Van Dyke Show.-Life and career:...
  
   as Phil
• Paul Picerni
  Paul Picerni
  -Life and career:Picerni was born in New York City, New York. He was an Eagle Scout who joined the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, where he served as a B-24 Liberator bombardier in the China-Burma-India Theater. He flew 25 combat missions with the 493rd Bomb Squadron of the 7th...
  
   as Carl
• Dick Crockett
  Dick Crockett
  Dick Crockett , born Richard DeHart Crockett, was an American television and film actor, stunt performer, stunt coordinator, producer, and director....
  
   as Don

Critical reception

TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

 called the film "A crisply done film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

with Rooney taken in by the universal emotional state that was at the root of many noir heroes' problems, loneliness."