Claude (Vince Edwards) wants to work for the never seen Mr. Brink as a contract killer. He meets with an intermediary who acts like he doesn't know what the guy is talking about, but at the end of the interview says he may call him - maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next month. So Claude stays patiently in his room waiting for this guy to call, which he does two weeks later.
So Claude is hired. You see him doing a few contract killings around town. In every case he's cool as a cucumber. Dispassionate is this guy's middle name. Fifteen minutes in Claude gets a contract in Los Angeles that pays five thousand dollars. The hit is going to be a star witness in a big criminal trial. This doesn't phase Claude. What does phase him is that the hit turns out to be a woman. Then he flips out. He says that it bothers him because women are unpredictable. Is he lying to himself? Is he actually more conventional that even he realizes? We shall see.
This is a most unusual noir, if you can even call it that. It rather defies categorization. Made by a low budget outfit, only Vince Edwards is a readily recognizable face, and his stardom came later, on TV. You never get a real handle on Claude. He keeps the facts brief for a reason - his profession. So you don't know the details of his upbringing or how he really feels about women. You only get a short soliloquy concerning how he feels about murdering for hire, that he has never been in trouble with the law, and that he left an adequate job to be a hired killer because he wants to buy a certain house on the Ohio River. There is a cast of memorable noir-like characters - a drunken maid who likes to spill the dirt, a lady of the - at the very least - early evening who unexpectedly has some useful info, and the two mobsters who are hired to escort Claude around town and make sure he fulfills his contract and who act as comic foils to Claude's laconic personality.
The dialogue is spartan, almost Beatnik like for the era. The score is unusual. Either a guitar or a mandolin playing. One particular piece of music was used in scenes from the Beverly Hillbillies that came along four years later, which makes for some odd mental imagery. I'd recommend it. It really is a most unusual crime film.
So Claude is hired. You see him doing a few contract killings around town. In every case he's cool as a cucumber. Dispassionate is this guy's middle name. Fifteen minutes in Claude gets a contract in Los Angeles that pays five thousand dollars. The hit is going to be a star witness in a big criminal trial. This doesn't phase Claude. What does phase him is that the hit turns out to be a woman. Then he flips out. He says that it bothers him because women are unpredictable. Is he lying to himself? Is he actually more conventional that even he realizes? We shall see.
This is a most unusual noir, if you can even call it that. It rather defies categorization. Made by a low budget outfit, only Vince Edwards is a readily recognizable face, and his stardom came later, on TV. You never get a real handle on Claude. He keeps the facts brief for a reason - his profession. So you don't know the details of his upbringing or how he really feels about women. You only get a short soliloquy concerning how he feels about murdering for hire, that he has never been in trouble with the law, and that he left an adequate job to be a hired killer because he wants to buy a certain house on the Ohio River. There is a cast of memorable noir-like characters - a drunken maid who likes to spill the dirt, a lady of the - at the very least - early evening who unexpectedly has some useful info, and the two mobsters who are hired to escort Claude around town and make sure he fulfills his contract and who act as comic foils to Claude's laconic personality.
The dialogue is spartan, almost Beatnik like for the era. The score is unusual. Either a guitar or a mandolin playing. One particular piece of music was used in scenes from the Beverly Hillbillies that came along four years later, which makes for some odd mental imagery. I'd recommend it. It really is a most unusual crime film.