Two Smart People
Directed by Jules DassinAce Connors is a charming con man on his way to a federal prison sentence, escorted across the country by easy-going federal agent Bob Simms. Before he surrenders, Ace has hidden the proceeds of an elaborate swindle – a cache no one has yet located. On the train, he encounters Ricki Woodner, a woman with her own angles and no obvious allegiances, whose interest in Ace sits somewhere between genuine attraction and calculated self-interest.
Ricki is herself being watched. A coterie of figures orbits the journey: the oily Mr. Rodriguez, the volatile Maria Ynez, the nervous Fly Feletti, and the officious Dwight Chandwick – each with some claim on Ace's hidden money. As the train moves and the stopovers accumulate, Ace and Ricki test one another, their sparring edged with the awareness that whoever blinks first loses everything. Simms, cheerfully underestimated by everyone, observes with quiet patience.
Two Smart People works the con-artist variant of noir, where the femme fatale and the doomed operator may be mirrors of each other rather than predator and prey. The film's interest lies less in violence than in the arithmetic of deception – who is playing whom, and at what cost. Its resolution turns not on gunfire but on the question of whether two people schooled entirely in bad faith can choose otherwise.
