Trailer
Plot summary
Lieutenant Duke Halliday is robbed of a $300,000 Army payroll, and when his superior, Captain Vincent Blake, suspects that he had a hand in the theft, Halliday follows the man who took the money into Mexico. On the road he runs into Joan Graham, who is chasing the same man: he is her ex-boyfriend and owes her $2,000 she lent him. Unsure whether they can trust each other, the two team up and the man stays a step ahead of them as the chase moves from Veracruz past Tehuacan and deeper into Puebla. Blake is close behind, still believing Halliday took part in the theft, and Police Inspector General Ortega takes an interest in the pursuit.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Alphonso DuBoisas Police Sergeant (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Big Steal (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lizabeth Scott quit three weeks before filming because of Robert Mitchum's marijuana arrest and was replaced by Jane Greer, a former girlfriend of RKO head Howard Hughes, who had been keeping Greer out of RKO films to ruin her career but gave in when no other actress would take the part.
- Filming in Los Angeles and Tehuacán, Puebla, Mexico, was rushed to cash in on publicity from Mitchum's drug charges, and some scenes were shot while he was serving his sentence.
- Because Mitchum was absent for part of the shoot, a scene in which William Bendix chases Mitchum through a forest was filmed three months apart: in Mitchum's shots the trees are green, and in Bendix's they are bare.
- George Raft was originally cast in The Big Steal but was replaced by Robert Mitchum after Mitchum's September 1, 1948 arrest for marijuana possession and his conviction and incarceration.
- Jane Greer's pregnancy kept the shooting schedule tight, which was part of the reason for the film's relatively short 71-minute running time.
