Richard Quine - Drive a Crooked Road (1954)

Music Box Theatre writes:
Before becoming famous for creating PETER GUNN and the PINK PANTHER movies, Blake Edwards scripted this extraordinary, if virtually unknown, ’50s film noir, which casts a fully-grown Mickey Rooney against type as a lovelorn mechanic whose craving for fast cars and a faster woman (the alluring Dianne Foster) drives him to sign on as wheelman in a bank robbery. In what may be his finest performance, Rooney delivers a compelling characterization of the “Little Freak,” whose desire for a duplicitous woman leads to an unforgettable conclusion. One of finest noir films of the fifties.