Follow Me Quietly

Follow Me Quietly (1949)

*** (out of 4)

Exciting film noir from RKO has a detective (William Lundigan) trying to track down a mysterious killer known as "The Judge". I haven't heard too many film noir lovers mention this film but I found it to be very tense and brilliantly directed. The film only runs 59-minutes but there's a lot of style throughout each one of them. The ending is full of action and some nice suspense. The film runs at a very fast pace and is over before you know it but for the life of me I can't figure out why this film isn't talked about more. Certainly worth checking out if you can catch it on TCM.

I saw this film when I was 10 years old and it has haunted me all my life. At first I could only remember a guy waiting in a room for someone to come back, but then there was the idea of a crazy murderer who goes bizerk when it rains and then the memory of all these dummies in the police station and the murderer gets in there somehow, I don;t know how, but as he is in the room someone comes in, a policeman, just to check out the dummies and the murderer goes and sits in a chair so he won't be discovered because he looks like all the other dummies that are sitting there, and as he is sitting he is facing a window...and we see that it is beginning to rain...and there is a close up of his hand gripping the arm of the chair...all this is from my memory of the film as a 10-year old - when I managed to discover what the film was with the use of IMDb and got a video and looked at it - it all seemed pretty harmless stuff - I saw the film in a little cinema in Shaftesbury Dorset with my brother. My parents left us there and had no idea what the film was. The memory of the American streets, and the cars and the black and white quality have all stayed with me...

I've been on a film noir fix lately & finding these flicks on You Tube such as Private Hell 36, Crime Of Passion, The Killer Is Loose, Please Murder Me, Raw Deal, Black Angel etc. Most of these I enjoyed & I've watched them once but when I stumbled onto this one yesterday I watched it again today as it was a little more than what I expected. Follow Me Quietly is not really a film noir it's a crime drama & police procedural.

It's a bit experimental & unusual which makes it stand out from the others, the late 40's post war period was a time when filmmakers were trying out new gimmicks such as subjective first person camera like Lady In The Lake (1946) & Dark Passage (1947). The police create a dummy of the killer from what evidence & clues they have which is a little more than the usual routine bulletin description of a suspect.

Sometimes a person can be identified & recognized by the back of their head & ears & the size & shape of their body & physique. Since the police have never seen the killers face the dummy is faceless & startling. The scene where the killer replaces the dummy & sits in William Lundigan's office facing the window with it's back to him is clever but pointless & foolish. What if the detective was smart enough to notice it was really him ? Why would the killer take such a risk ? I think it was just a gimmick & for cinematic effect to satisfy the filmmakers & to give the audience a thrill. The silly trick worked & fooled me I thought it was the faceless dummy.

And when the killers face is revealed he's not what you expect, he's very insecure & nervous & seems incapable of doing anything right. How did he manage to kill 8 victims & get away with it ? The ending is similar to White Heat & this film isn't great but it's fun & interesting, different & memorable & worth watching. I've seen it twice & I may watch it again.

Follow Me Quietly is directed by Richard Fleischer (with uncredited help from Anthony Mann) and adapted to screenplay by Lillie Hayward from a story written by Mann and Francis Rosenwald. It stars William Lundigan, Dorothy Patrick, Jeff Corey, Nestor Paiva and Paul Guilfoyle. Music is by Leonid Raab and cinematography by Robert De Grasse.

A serial killer known as "The Judge" is stalking the city, his modus operandi is to strike when it rains and to kill by strangulation. The police have loads of little clues but nothing solid to go on. The strain is starting to weigh heavy on Lt. Harry Grant (Lundigan), but he comes up with a genius idea to help catch the killer - a mannequin!

Not widely known, but once released to MOD home format it got more noticed and has been keenly sought out by fans of the great Anthony Mann. It has proved a little divisive so this fawning review should be taken with a little context. Clocking in at just under an hour in length, Fleischer's film is by definition a compact RKO "B" picture, but the quality of story, and the little slices of noir craft, ensure it's got plenty of strengths going for it.

In essence it's an early police procedural dealing with the hunt for a serial killer. There's a babe in the mix, Dorothy Patrick as an intrepid reporter who announcers herself to the film wearing a see through mackintosh, which of course is splendid. She teams up with Grant, not as a fatale, but as a sort of wry cohort, suggestion is evident, sexual tension even, but nothing is shoe-horned in to the pic. The cops are all stoic types, splendidly attired for period delights, but it's with Lundigan's head of investigations where the film gets its pulse beat. He gets in deep with the psychological aspects of the case, thinking like the killer, talking to the faceless mannequin that has been constructed out of clues left by the killer, the mirror images of the killer and mannequin are not exactly a million miles away from Lundigan himself. Cheeky is that.

Mann's stamp is all over the film, but Fleischer's work is evident for sure, an economical purist meets the crafty auteur, a fine match. Robert De Grasse (The Body Snatcher/Born to Kill) is a key component, operating with angles and shades when required, there's a distinct uneasy feel to proceedings. A few scenes grab the attention with full effect, akin to a spider inviting a fly to dinner, which all builds to a head, culminating in a blunderbuss finale at an oil refinery - cum - power plant. Only where White Heat (also 1949) went nighttime for its coup de grace, Follow Me Quietly did it in daylight. Cheeky is that.

It's not perfect. Some logic holes are there as regards the water effect with the killer, which also leads us to lament a lack of reasoning and understanding with the perpetrator. There's also a couple of instances where the mannequin is played in a rear shot by a real actor, why? I have no idea. While the best scene in the film, as Lundigan chats to the dummy in a darkened room - and the rain falls hard on the windows - brings about a reveal that makes no sense what so ever. Especially once "The Judge" is revealed. However, this is easy to recommend to noir heads and fans of police procedurals, and I loved it. 8/10

I finally found this movie on video and enjoyed it immensely. I think the other reviewers are missing the point of this movie. They criticize the scene where the killer replaces a dummy of himself in the detective's office and no one notices the difference. This scene to me displays the imagination of the director, who went on to do "The Armored Car Robbery" and the original "Narrow Margin". These B movies are designed for entertainment, not for realism and beat the pants off of most of the junk put out today. So sit back and enjoy the ride!