This movie was a major find for me - the fifties ushered in a more realistic noir genre (thanks to "He Walks By Night", "Dragnet" etc) zeroing in on loners, killers whose motivations were never fully explained, helped enormously by outside location shootings and casting unknown actors. Adam Williams is perfect casting as the fresh faced boyish loner, he is just appealing enough for it to be understandable why lonely women were taken with his charms.
Carl Martin is a gardener whose creepy personality was enough for his blonde wife to look elsewhere. Toward the end he tries to justify his behaviour on his wife's abandonment but from the start, with his barely concealed gun it is so obvious that he enjoys killing. As the film opens, the police are baffled by yet another "blonde killing" but this time they have a clue - the killer left a calling card in a piece from a blue coat and as the forensics guy says, an expensive one!! Martin is always one jump ahead of the police - they have been combing men's clothing repair shops but Martin realises this is just what they expect him to do and burns it!!
The pacing and editing keep you on the edge of your seat - usually with the expectation of violence that is always implied but never seen. As when a beautiful blonde gives him the "come on" in the bar, they get to talking in her car, the next scene shows her obviously dead. What follows is a really cracker of suspense - Carl and his "date" parked under a bridge are noticed by a passing policeman, he tries to drive off but the car becomes bogged in the dust - even that doesn't arouse the cop's suspicions. When the policeman wants to take a closer look at the girl who Carl says is just drunk, that precipitates a mammoth chase on foot along with gun play through unfinished freeways, zig zagging around the Produce Market where the killer thinks that by his fancy footwork with changing taxis, he has given them the slip!!
As well as trying to track through a murderer's mind there is also a routine police investigation going on - from the discovery of the murder weapon being a pair of secateurs, it is concluded that they are looking for a gardener. Carl has already lined up his next victim - she is the daughter of the man where Carl buys his gardening supplies. Initially turned off because she is married, he can't resist his compulsions which end in a shoot out, outside Martin's ramshackle house amidst a poor Mexican hillside settlement, soon to be demolished for Dodgers Stadium.
This definitely should be ranked along with "The Sniper" as one of the early 1950s best "unknown noirs"!!
Very Recommended!!
Carl Martin is a gardener whose creepy personality was enough for his blonde wife to look elsewhere. Toward the end he tries to justify his behaviour on his wife's abandonment but from the start, with his barely concealed gun it is so obvious that he enjoys killing. As the film opens, the police are baffled by yet another "blonde killing" but this time they have a clue - the killer left a calling card in a piece from a blue coat and as the forensics guy says, an expensive one!! Martin is always one jump ahead of the police - they have been combing men's clothing repair shops but Martin realises this is just what they expect him to do and burns it!!
The pacing and editing keep you on the edge of your seat - usually with the expectation of violence that is always implied but never seen. As when a beautiful blonde gives him the "come on" in the bar, they get to talking in her car, the next scene shows her obviously dead. What follows is a really cracker of suspense - Carl and his "date" parked under a bridge are noticed by a passing policeman, he tries to drive off but the car becomes bogged in the dust - even that doesn't arouse the cop's suspicions. When the policeman wants to take a closer look at the girl who Carl says is just drunk, that precipitates a mammoth chase on foot along with gun play through unfinished freeways, zig zagging around the Produce Market where the killer thinks that by his fancy footwork with changing taxis, he has given them the slip!!
As well as trying to track through a murderer's mind there is also a routine police investigation going on - from the discovery of the murder weapon being a pair of secateurs, it is concluded that they are looking for a gardener. Carl has already lined up his next victim - she is the daughter of the man where Carl buys his gardening supplies. Initially turned off because she is married, he can't resist his compulsions which end in a shoot out, outside Martin's ramshackle house amidst a poor Mexican hillside settlement, soon to be demolished for Dodgers Stadium.
This definitely should be ranked along with "The Sniper" as one of the early 1950s best "unknown noirs"!!
Very Recommended!!