The Killer is Loose (1956) in The Psycho Ward Forum

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The Killer is Loose (1956)

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Monsterpal	The Killer is Loose (1956)	Lead	[-]
Mar 17 12 9:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This late noir, effectively directed by Budd Boetticher, is about a meek, bespectacled bank clerk (Wendell Corey) who gets involved in a robbery. His crime leads to his wife's death and his incarceration. He swears revenge against the detective (Joseph Cotten) who accidentally shot his wife. After a few years in the pen his good behavior leads to the honor farm. He escapes by killing a guard (Stanley Adams) and a farmer, and manages to fool the cops as he returns to LA, not to kill Cotten but Cotten's pregnant wife (Rhonda Fleming). With Virginia Christine, Alan Hale Jr, and Michael Pate. This 73 minute movie manages to build up to a very suspenseful climax, in which the murderer is wearing a woman's clothes four years before PSYCHO was released. It works very well because of Boetticher's direction and the cast, most notably Wendell Corey's splendidly creepy portrayal of the murderer, Leon Poole. With John Larch as a would-be hero.
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Rick		#1	[-]
Mar 17 12 10:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This one pretty much turned my opinion of Wendell Corey on its head. I'd always seen him as an adequate, stiff, sometimes boring 2nd lead. But he's really cooking in this one. Easily the best thing I ever saw him do. The second best performance I ever saw from him was in MY MAN AND I with Shelley Winters and Ricardo Montalban. It's a much, much different sort of role from his nutjob in KILLER. I first saw these two films within a few days of each other and Corey's stock went up about 500% in my sights.
clore103051		#2	[-]
Mar 18 12 12:15 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Monsterpal wrote: This 73 minute movie manages to build up to a very suspenseful climax, in which the murderer is wearing a woman's clothes four years before PSYCHO was released. There's also a "killer" milk bottle sequence six years before the one in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE.
Monsterpal		#3	[-]
Mar 18 12 12:17 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That's right, Clore. Although I think it was a milk carton in TMC.
clore103051		#4	[-]
Mar 18 12 7:17 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Was it a carton in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE? It's been so long since I've sat down to watch the whole thing but I've seen the Boetticher film much more recently, twice in the last year or so. I've really got to see Boetticher's BEHIND LOCKED DOORS again. I saw that maybe 40 years ago when it was a TV staple and haven't heard of it since. This was sort of a dry run for Fuller's SHOCK CORRIDOR and the cast of genre stalwarts such as Richard Carlson, Tor Johnson and Thomas Browne Henry should have added appeal around here. Edited for typo. Last Edited By: clore103051 Mar 18 12 3:24 PM. Edited 1 times.
Monsterpal		#5	[-]
Mar 18 12 2:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, BEHIND LOCKED DOORS is excellent, too. Tor as "The Champ" is in good fighting form. KILLER was made just before Boetticher started making Westerns with Randolph Scott. The first one, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW, was released the same year.
Rapfred		#6	[-]
Mar 18 12 3:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Corey is terrific indeed as Foggy Poole in KILLER. But for my dough, he's even better as gang lord John Hodiak's swooning, acid-tongued aide de camp in the seriously unhinged DESERT FURY.
clore103051		#7	[-]
Mar 18 12 3:33 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Monsterpal wrote: Yes, BEHIND LOCKED DOORS is excellent, too. Tor as "The Champ" is in good fighting form. KILLER was made just before Boetticher started making Westerns with Randolph Scott. The first one, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW, was released the same year. I've been touting the Boetticher/Scott westerns for decades now. They were just about out-of-circulation for a while and even my own memories of seeing them on TV in the 60s were beginning to dim. Dollar-for-dollar, I considered them to be at least the equal of Mann/Stewart westerns of the same decade. I just couldn't find many others who had seen them. His LEGS DIAMOND is probably the best entry in the short-lived gangster revival that started with Siegel's BABY FACE NELSON and soon saw AL CAPONE, MAD DOG COLL, THE PURPLE GANG, PORTRAIT OF A MOBSTER, MACHINE GUN KELLY, THE BONNIE PARKER STORY and KING OF THE ROARING 20s come and go.
Steve R		#8	[-]
Mar 18 12 10:04 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Big Boetticher fan and love this one! That sequence along the sidewalk leading up to the house is so suspenseful. Clore, I've been wanting to see Siegel's Baby Face Neslon again for years. I saw it on the 4:30 movie so many years ago. Mickey Rooney with Carolyn Jones, IIRC. Portait of a Mobster is another good one - about Dutch Shultz with Vic Morrow. That's never come out. I remember liking it a lot. You're on the money with these! Have you found copies of them?
clore103051		#9	[-]
Mar 18 12 10:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	A friend sent me a copy of BABY FACE NELSON, but it was a terribly dark print that also looked to be a fifth-generation 16mm print. I tried using various adjustments on my set, but I couldn't make it watchable. He said it was a bad bootlegged copy, so I was warned. I haven't seen PORTRAIT OF A MOBSTER since it aired on the CBS Thursday Movie in the 60s. TCM has AL CAPONE, MAD DOG COLL, KING OF THE ROARING 20s and LEGS DIAMOND coming up on May 24. THE PURPLE GANG is on May 7 (technically May at 3am Eastern time.
telegonus	Gangster Revival Cycle	#10	[-]
Mar 19 12 1:29 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm a fan of the gangster revival of roughly 1957-62. A lot of them were done as "period pieces", set during Prohibition or even, in the case of Pay Or Die, earlier. It was really one of the last gasps of the B's, too, as I can't imagine any of them playing in the first run houses of major cities as anything but second features. There was also I, Mobster, which is pretty good. I've yet to see The Purple Gang, which, based on the coming attractions they aired on the late movie when I was a kid looks like it was sold as an exploitation picture, but then maybe that was true for the genre as a whole, sort of the crime equivalent of the Castle horror flicks. The Last Mile kicks butt, too. Mickey Rooney must have played more weird-wacked out criminal types than Widmark and Duryea put together; and he was just as good as they were. His pictures were smaller scale but that sort of suited him. Does The George Raft Story count? I think it does, due to its style and Ray Danton's playing the lead. Raft may well be the first post-silent era star to have a movie biography. The others,--Jolson, Cantor, Will Rogers--were known before they started making movies. Raft became famous in the movies. Whether the success of this series of films was an influence on the TV The Untouchables is a matter for speculation. Then there was Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, made in the same period, and which in some ways resembles those late gangster flicks in style. Last Edited By: telegonus Mar 19 12 1:32 AM. Edited 1 times.
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clore103051		#11	[-]
Mar 19 12 9:22 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I meant to add The George Raft Story earlier of an example of how when they ran out of gangsters to portray, they went for an actor who played gangsters while the revival was still going. It's actually more interesting while set in NYC than it is when he goes to Hollywood. The Purple Gang is cheap, but effective and Robert Blake is fantastic as Honeyboy. I think that the worst of the lot is Mad Dog Coll which has John Davis Chandler in the lead. I've enjoyed him in small roles, such as in Outlaw Josey Wales or a Columbo episode. As a lead, he is embarrassingly bad and while he's as creepy looking as Steve Buscemi, he's got nowhere near his charisma. Imagine Skelton Knaggs trying to imitate James Cagney by way of the Actor's Studio and you've reached John Davis Chandler. Meanwhile, the film has Jerry Orbach, Vincent Gardenia and Telly Savalas in a smaller roles and Gene Hackman in a bit as a cop - I think he has one line. Director Burt Balaban should have stopped after Murder, Inc., a title I neglected earlier. Or maybe he sat out the latter and let Stuart Rosenberg do all the work.
telegonus		#12	[-]
Mar 19 12 9:54 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I remember Chandler best as the most badass of the street kids in The Young Savages. He was creepy looking. Good movie, it doesn't have much of a reputation, plays like an extended episode of Naked City with a bigger budget. Burt stayed true to his New York roots. I found his performance sincere and heartfelt.
Mora		#13	[-]
Mar 19 12 4:21 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, given that Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was the most psychotic criminal of the era, I don't know if any other actor could have played the role better than Chandler. He looked and acted crackers. Certainly not Clu Gulager, who played Coll in an "Untouchables" episode of the same name, with a goofy horse racing story that had absolutely nothing to do with Coll's real-life career.
Steve R		#14	[-]
Mar 19 12 4:53 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Clore, I got those TCM showings written down on a post-it already. We likely saw the same broadcast of Portrait of a Mobster on CBS. A Friday night? Tele, You might want to add Pretty Boy Floyd (1960) to that list. John Ericson has the lead. It's a real gritty film.
clore103051		#15	[-]
Mar 19 12 6:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I thought that the CBS airing was a Thursday, only because I was home to see it. Usually Friday night would not have found me watching TV at that point. Maybe one run was a Thursday, the second a Friday. I did see Portrait of a Mobster theatrically, it was double-billed with Gold of the Seven Saints. Now Pretty Boy Floyd is one that has always eluded me but I did see the later take with Fabian in the title role that was part of the next gangster revival prompted by Bonnie and Clyde. Granted, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was also 1967, but I doubt that was any part of the renewed interest in Depression era gangsters. I enjoy it, only because it's just so over-the-top in every possible way that you can't help but smile during it.
clore103051		#16	[-]
Mar 19 12 6:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Mora wrote: Well, given that Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was the most psychotic criminal of the era, I don't know if any other actor could have played the role better than Chandler. I just saw Chandler's attempt at channeling Dean or Brando to be laughable - at least Frank Gorshin's act in Bells Are Ringing was intentional parody but that's what Chandler reminded me of most when I saw the film a couple of years ago on TCM. Robert Ivers might have been able to carry it off, although Vic Morrow actually resembles Coll a lot more than anyone else that I can think of who was working at the time. Maybe Charles Dierkop would have sufficed.
Mora		#17	[-]
Mar 19 12 6:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	My problem with the gangster films mentioned is that, with very few exceptions, they veer wildly from the facts. I really was looking forward to "Public Enemies" but outside of the inspired casting of Giovanni Ribisi as Alvin Karpis (man, a biopic of Karpis must be made with Ribisi in the title role, his resemblance to Old Creepy is astounding!) the film played so loose with the facts that it annoyed the hell out of me. "Dillinger" with the terrific Warren Oates was a much better film, though again many liberties were taken: Baby Face Nelson and Homer Van Meter (a great comical performance by Harry Dean Stanton) getting killed before Dillinger . . . uh, don't think so. Have the DVD of "Pretty Boy Floyd" and it really crapped out with its ultra low budget depiction of the Kansas City Massacre. Even "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" which was probably the closest to what really happened (Jason Robards' Capone and the Jimmy Cagney-styled playing of George Segal as Pete Gusenberg aside) would have been better realized by just sticking to the facts. Okay, I admit I'm being too much of a purist, but the history is all there, folks. Don't see any need for fictional embellishments.
TomWeaver999		#18	[-]
Mar 19 12 7:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Don't forget 1960's MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD (with the role of Ma initially meant to go to J&H's Miriam Hopkins).
Rick		#19	[-]
Mar 19 12 8:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	clore103051 wrote: I think that the worst of the lot is Mad Dog Coll which has John Davis Chandler in the lead. I've enjoyed him in small roles, such as in Outlaw Josey Wales or a Columbo episode. As a lead, he is embarrassingly bad and while he's as creepy looking as Steve Buscemi, he's got nowhere near his charisma. Imagine Skelton Knaggs trying to imitate James Cagney by way of the Actor's Studio and you've reached John Davis Chandler. Couldn't agree more. I wanted to see this thing for decades before I finally caught up with it (on Antenna TV) just a few months back. It's really awful. And what makes it awful is just what you wrote -- Chandler. It's a movie-killing performance, an embarrassment. Painful to look at almost, but at the same time, it's hard to avert your gaze. Glad I finally saw it, but I'm never gonna watch it again.
telegonus		#20	[-]
Mar 20 12 1:47 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	John Davis Chandler was sort of the Skelton Knaggs of his field. His career reminds me a bit of Tim Carey's. Both actors specialized in playing creeps, came off more like real life creeps than as actors playing creeps. I never saw much talent in either, give them points for being disturbing in looks and manner, and for knowing how to use the way they came across on film. But is that acting? Frank Gorshin always seemed to be channeling someone but was fun to watch. Remember him in Ring Of Fire? His villain was like early Kirk Douglas. Murder, Inc. seems to stand apart from the others, was distributed by a major studio, featured well known players. Take away Peter Falk and it would be scarcely worth watching. Then there was the latecomer to the group, the 1965 Young Dillinger, with Nick Adams, still a star, but on the downslide. It got a lot of newspaper ads, apparently didn't make much money, but then it couldn't have cost a lot. I can imagine Adams watching an early episode of Combat!, seeing how well Vic Morrow was doing in the role of the sergeant, muttering something to himself along the lines of George Raft watching Bogart in The Maltese Falcon ("there but for the grace of I..."). It could have been Adams. I recently saw him in the Outer Limits episode he made with Nancy Malone (Fun and Games) and he really put a lot into the part, a lot of himself, I sensed. He always had that down at the heels air of desperation to him.
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The Killer is Loose (1956)

The Killer is Loose (1956)