Daily Archives: July 29, 2014

Murder by Contract
Directed by Irving Lerner
Written by Ben Simcoe
1958/USA
Orbit Productions/Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics I DVD

[box] Claude: The way i see it, Harry, everybody lives off everybody else.[/box]

This quirky little film is worth a look.

Claude (Vince Edwards) has his eye on a house that costs $23,000.  He has $523 in the bank and makes about $75 a week on his job.  He does the math and decides to try out for a job as a contract killer, a career to which he turns out to be ideally suited.  He has no record, doesn’t write anything down,  and has a distaste for guns.  He is soon impressing his boss with his efficiency.

After several successful jobs, Claude is sent to Los Angeles for a contract on a witness who is set to testify against his boss.  He is met at the railway station by two minders who never leave his side.  He takes his time planning the hit.  First he wants to see the Pacific Ocean, go to the zoo, etc.  This makes the minders very nervous but they have no choice but to go along.

When Claude finally gets around to casing the house where his victim lives he learns there are a couple of complications.  First, the victim is a woman.  Claude thinks he should double his fee.  Second, the house is heavily guarded by police and the victim is so terrified she never takes a step out the door.

This shoestring budget noir was shot in seven days.  Although it is played very straight, the situations are so far-fetched that they made me smile.  The incongrously peppy music, Vince Edwards’s code of conduct, the whining minders,  everything contributes to a good time.

Trailer – cinematography by Lucien Ballard

Martin Scorsese on Murder by Contract

The Verdict
Directed by Don Siegel
Written by Peter Milne from a novel by Israel Zangwill
1946/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Supt. George Edward Grodman: I feel as if I were drinking at my own wake.[/box]

This Sidney Greensreet/Peter Lorre locked room mystery didn’t grab me.

The story opens in 19th Century London with Superintendent George Grodman (Greenstreet) of Scotland Yard witnessing the execution of a man he helped to convict. Almost immediately his bitter rival Supt. Buckley (George Colouris) brings him the missing alibi witness that establishes the man’s innocence.  Grodman is forced to retire and Buckley takes his job.

At Grodman’s house, we meet his friends:  an artist with a taste for the macabre, mine-owning lout Arthur Kendall whose aunt was the murder victim, and a reformist Parliamentarian who is Kendall’s sworn enemy.  Naturally, these three all live in the same boarding house.  After the party breaks up, we see Kendall arguing with music-hall singer Lottie Rawson (Joan Lorring) about some fake jewelry he gave her.

The next day, the landlady finds Kendall’s door locked and cannot rouse him.  Suspecting foul play, she calls Grodman and the two discover Kendall’s murdered body.  All hypotheses on how the killer could have entered and exited the locked room prove impossible.  The rest of the story follows the inept Buckley as he investigates the murder with occasional help from Grodman.

I think it’s a stretch to call this murder mystery a film noir.  It’s competently made but didn’t make me care about the outcome.  It does give viewers the opportunity to see director Don Siegel’s (Dirty Harry)  first feature film.

Clip – Joan Lorring sings “Give Me a Little Bit”