Achtung ... Blondinen-Gangster

This is the oldest sort of serial killer stories ( not based on a true story ) that i have seen ans it is a more than good suspence thriller abouth a killer that only murders blonde beautiful women because his ex was blond and now he hates them . unfortunately this back up story is only be given us by the specialist who gives advice to the police . It would have been even better to see some sort of back up story from the murderer his past or something like that . The suspence is well writen and a few chasing scenes are very good .

This story of a serial killer came out 55 years ago. It's dated primarily in that it isn't gory and graphic. At moments, it feels as if it's about to go that way. But of course the censors wouldn't have allowed it.

The director, though not in anyone's pantheon, has great noir cred. "Down Three Dark Streets" alone is something to be very proud of.

The pace is just right. The acting, by people wholly unknown to me, is professional and convincing.

We know almost from the start who the killer is. It's a matter of whether and when he will be caught. The film languishes more on his bland good looks than on the appearance of any of his victims. He's nice enough looking: rather baby-faced. We see him without his shirt in a long, not extraneous, scene.

The attention paid to the killer reminded me of "The Sniper," which came out at the same time. "The Sniper" is better known and was done on a higher budget. But I wouldn't say it's better. This is a very good, scary movie.

The plot—a serial killer pursuing pretty blondes—is not exactly novel, however, the movie is better than I expected and very well done. Early on, the chase between cops and killer around the concrete jungle of LA freeways is both suspenseful and well staged. In fact the entire film appears to have been made on location, in parts of low-income east LA seldom seen on the Hollywood screen. For example, killer Martin's (Williams) slum-like hilltop neighborhood looks like the genuine thing, but with a good view of LA's downtown, plus the post-war grid of freeways slicing the urban landscape like concrete arteries.

Williams low-keys his psychopathic killer with little change of expression. That way we don't know what's boiling up underneath. Neither, for that matter, are the killings exploited for shock value. Instead the emphasis is on suspense as we follow the police investigators' attempts to track down the madman before the pile of blonde corpses gets higher. The influence of documentary-like approach to police methods is evident throughout. This was, after all, the era of Dragnet on TV. The movie also has a number of good touches. For example, the police chemist who needles the detectives in low-key fashion lends interest to a potentially routine scene; or the little girl with her broken doll that lends poignant flavor to the seedy hilltop neighborhood.

On the whole, the movie is done with care and imagination, and can hold its own with many of the better crime dramas of the day. One thing for sure, it at least merits inclusion in Leonard Maltin's too often unreliable movie guide. To me, it's a rather glaring omission even if it is an independent production with a no-name cast.

This film noir is a typical Hollywood B picture of the early fifties, made on a low budget and with obscure talent. However, it works very well. It was the first film directed by Arnold Laven, whose subsequent career, which lasted until 1985, was mainly in American television series, although his second film was VICE SQUAD (1953), starring Edward G. Robinson and Paulette Goddard, so he was moving up from B status already. None of the actors in this film ever achieved significant status. The story concerns a psychotic serial killer, well played with suitably demented expressions and a great deal of tension by Carl Martin, who was jilted by a blonde of a certain type, so he repeatedly seeks out blondes who resemble her, in order to kill them and thus get back at her. From the beginning of the film, there is no secret about who the killer is, and we see him at work, stalking and stabbing the women to death with his garden shears (he is a professional gardener). The film is thus all about how they can identify and catch him, since his fingerprints are not on file and there are so few clues. The film lapses from time to time into a 'police procedural drama', but only briefly, and I suspect it was originally designed as one but then they decided to cut most of that out and just get on with the story, which was a good idea. For those who like early fifties noir, this film has a great deal of interest, is well made, and holds the attention.

This is a virtually spotless transfer and for Film Noir fans who have to put up with beaten up prints of unjustly forgotten films that alone I think perhaps has lead other writers here to rate the movie a bit too highly. It is a police procedure picture (with a surprising amount of forensics used for the time) that unfortunately comes to an obvious ending that reduces what came before it. It is especially well scored and photographed on real(and unique) locations that make it seem very fresh.

It is like THE SNIPER, though that film deals with wider issues and has a harder edge and most distinct style, where this plays out like a really good episode of something like THE NAKED CITY, or DRAGNET. The ending is safe and small. The characters although well acted are really stock "types" and don't really become three dimensional.

That said the first half of the film is very good and all the positives other writers on IMDb have said are true. But this doesn't ever become a drama, staying safely in melodrama land and that keeps it as mostly by the numbers B picture. Everybody does their job well but also safely within the confines of a programmer. The script just can't let them break out into a real classic noir.