Splendor in the Cucumbers

There's this young guy just out of the Army. He's kind of on the bum. Works at a migrant-labor camp in California picking cucumbers. Gets canned for fighting. Finds another job as a motel handyman. Falls for his former boss's girl friend, who is trouble. A little bit psycho; likes to make it on tombstones. She leads him on and talks him into a big job: stealing $50,000 worth of the migrants' payroll. Then comes the doublecross.

Although it was made last year, The Big Bounce has the look and tone of films long gone. As the ex-G.I., Ryan O'Neal plays a character patently modeled on John Garfield and uses an acting style that owes much to James Dean. Leigh Taylor-Young appears--frequently without clothing--as the sort of character that James M. Cain used to write about, a homicidal bitch goddess who attracts and destroys men with appetites that do not stop at sex. It is obvious that Warner Bros, hoped to package two agreeable young stars in some tried and true material. Too tried, and that's too true.

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