Walk the Dark Street

Don Ross returns from Korea and calls on Chuck Conners. Conner's brother was in Ross' platoon and had been killed. The two chat. Both are big game hunters, but Conners has a new twist. He has a big game rifle, but the bullet has been replaced with a camera. He wants to hunt people in the city. When he pulls the trigger, there's a snapshot with a time stamp. He challenges Ross to a bet: they stalk each other, and the winner walks away with either a thousand of Ross' money or ten grand of Conners. It's a good gamble as far as Ross is concerned. A field-promotion second lieutenant doesn't pull down much, and while he was away, his partner let the business go to pot and failed to pay the insurance just before they had a fire.

So they shake hands on it, and Ross walks away with a rifle set up with a camera in the barrel. Whereupon Conners replaces the camera in his with a 30-30 shell. His brother had written him that Ross was a tin g*d and would probably get them all killed. So he's going to get some revenge.

It's an interesting variation on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Writer-Director Wyott Ordung shoots most of it in medium length stolen shots, showing the two men looking for each other, vanishing around one corner as the other comes around another. It didn't quite work for me, looking almost foolish the fifth or sixth time it happened, rather than suspenseful. The subplots also miss by a hair: Conners' bum ticker, his brothers' girlfriend who thinks he's crazy.

Also, the times have changed: two men walking the streets of Los Angeles carrying big game rifles are going to be shot by the LAPD. But kudos for a nice idea.

Low budget thriller, with a strange plot, that is delivered well by the actors and director. Exemplary.

Best known for some classic "B" science fiction films of the 1950s such as MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR, writer/producer/director Wyott Ordung attempted to work in the LA film noir/psychological drama vein with this 1956 rarity, taking the classic "Most Dangerous Game" scenario as a starting point, but reinventing it in a very novel way. I don't want to give too much plot away as the film unrolls in a surprising way. Chuck Connors, although best known for his Western roles and his fatherly manner on The Rifleman, plays over-the-top psycho roles well (see DEATH IN SMALL DOSES for proof!), and does so here, pitted against Korean War vet Don Ross (billed as "introducing"). It's an interesting psychological game of wits. Although many of the expository scenes are shot on a few small sets, much of the action takes place on the streets of 1950s Los Angeles, fascinating to look at and giving the film a wonderfully gritty and authentic feel. The film also has the ironic development of a Twilight Zone or Thriller episode, but further developed to feature length. This seems to be a unique entry in Mr. Ordung's filmography, and it shows that he can work well within the low-budget crime drama field with minimal resources because he can as a writer and director create tense situations and he had the good sense to hire actors such as Chuck Connors. Don Ross is fine too, although he is the down-to-earth one here and other than being tough and ingenious is not given the opportunities for histrionics that the script gives to Connors. Perhaps because Ordung is a "cult" name in Science Fiction circles, someone will do a video/dvd release of this little-known gem--I certainly hope so. It is due for re-evaluation. (It has a vague resemblance to CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHO CAT, made ten years later...although that is probably coincidental. PSYCHO CAT was the first film I thought of while watching this)

This is considered film noir because it's poorly lit. Chuck Connors just starting out. I once saw Chuck Connors ask John Wayne About his real name Marion. John Wayne did take the bate and had no problem acknowledging his real name. Would have been great to see these two giants spar but the Lone Ranger Clayton Moore and Cheyanne Clint Walker were there and it was all friendly. Anyway this was made on a shoestring in 50's LA and meanders along but could have been great with better scripting and people with talent. In the end it's pointless. I had teacher say all good stories are a chase, the only problem with that theory is the end has to pay off and this payoff is pointless.

Was this a Jr High Film Club project? Well, the camera boy did a good job, but the script and acting must be about the most inept, unlikely set of events in Hollywood--or anywhere else--history. One you-got-to-be-kidding moment after another! Why'd they make this thing? Who funded it, what was he smoking and where can the rest of us get some? Good for beginning screenwriting class: what not to do!