This unsung little movie released over 60 years ago by United Artists manages to be both an intelligent, very convincing crime film as well as delivering the pleasures of a traditional B-movie. Its Rod Serling story delivers psychological motivations that hold up well, while low-budget expert Edward L. Cahn wraps it all up0 neatly in a whirlwind final reel of sheer pleasure.
With an outstanding performance by Virgina Christine as the mother of a young teen shot dead fleeing by our hero, a soulful, neurotic cop,the script smoothly shows both sides of a deadly situation: the difficulty of the police to make split second decisions, and the sentiment accorded the victims. Our hero clearly did the best he could but almost everyone turns against him because he shot a 14-year-old in the back.
He's feeling pags of guilt, even though acquitted in a trial for manslaughter that makes both sides of the case equally defensible. Only gimmick that the film relies on is his yeoman efforts to solve an adjacent robbery/homicide which explains and ties up all loose ends.
To manipulate an audience, both B-movies and increasingly Hollywood blockbusters strain credulity with arbitrary motivation and weird plot twists to maximize thrills. This sober little picture goes the opposite route, treating the viewer fairly and giving one something to think about by movie's end.
An usual sidelight here helps bolster my theory about the continuum represented in the entertainment industry. Made by a B-movie team with extremely low-budget, this film was nevertheless released by United Artists, one of the major film distributors, not an exploitation company. And the star giving a sensitive performance playing the cop was Chris Warfield, who several years later became a sexploitation movie producer and director, starting in softcore and graduating to XXX porn, with several excellent Adult movies in his resume. It's all part of showbiz.
With an outstanding performance by Virgina Christine as the mother of a young teen shot dead fleeing by our hero, a soulful, neurotic cop,the script smoothly shows both sides of a deadly situation: the difficulty of the police to make split second decisions, and the sentiment accorded the victims. Our hero clearly did the best he could but almost everyone turns against him because he shot a 14-year-old in the back.
He's feeling pags of guilt, even though acquitted in a trial for manslaughter that makes both sides of the case equally defensible. Only gimmick that the film relies on is his yeoman efforts to solve an adjacent robbery/homicide which explains and ties up all loose ends.
To manipulate an audience, both B-movies and increasingly Hollywood blockbusters strain credulity with arbitrary motivation and weird plot twists to maximize thrills. This sober little picture goes the opposite route, treating the viewer fairly and giving one something to think about by movie's end.
An usual sidelight here helps bolster my theory about the continuum represented in the entertainment industry. Made by a B-movie team with extremely low-budget, this film was nevertheless released by United Artists, one of the major film distributors, not an exploitation company. And the star giving a sensitive performance playing the cop was Chris Warfield, who several years later became a sexploitation movie producer and director, starting in softcore and graduating to XXX porn, with several excellent Adult movies in his resume. It's all part of showbiz.