El guardaespaldas

Slick,speedy 'B' thriller with on(and off!)screen tough guy Lawrence Tierney as a suspended cop eventually agreeing to do some work on the side as a bodyguard for a wealthy family.The plot is inevitably fairly routine,but there are some well-handled scenes,and it remains watchable.One fact not usually mentioned;this was the final screen appearance of Priscilla Lane(best known for her roles in WARNER BROS. classics in the 30's,and Hitchcock's SABOTEUR);she was still far too young and surely had more years ahead as a screen actress.Her performance in her screen bow is OK,like Tierney and the rest of the cast.Director Richard Flesicher had better 'B' efforts up his sleeve though(THE NARROW MARGIN),a few years later.

They sure don't make 'em like "Bodyguard" anymore. No. They sure don't.

This tough-as-nails, 1948, Crime/Thriller certainly packed a lot of story into its 62 minute running time.

Containing some really priceless "tough-guy" dialog, "Bodyguard" has no-nonsense actor Lawrence Tierney playing Mike Carter, a real macho-man, L.A. police detective (with a hair-trigger temper) from the Homicide Squad.

When Mike gets bounced off the force for brawling with his superior officer, who is later found dead, he becomes Suspect #1.

Scrambling to clear his name, Carter soon finds himself up against a whole big mess of police corruption.

"Bodyguard", filmed in b&w, is a solid, fast-paced, little B-movie with striking direction from Richard Fleischer.

Nope. They sure don't make 'em like this anymore.

This film is not about bodyguards. It is based on a story co-authored by the 23 year-old Robert Altman, his first screen credit. Dick Fleischer, just getting into his stride, here directs his first noir thriller, which was followed the next year by his brilliant 'The Clay Pigeon'. This film is not brilliant, but it is good, and would have been better if many minutes had not been cut out of it. Lawrence Tierney (no relation to Gene Tierney), who for years was a reliable tough guy, here plays a sympathetic cop who wants to get rough with the bad guys and is thrown off the Force, briefly taking on a bodyguard role (though that is just incidental), and becomes enmired in a frame-up and plenty of trouble. His doting girl friend is played charmingly by Priscilla Lane, in her last film before retiring from the screen at the age of 33. Tierney has a knockabout charm of his own, and grim-faced though he tends to be, can be grimly determined to nail the baddies and not only grimly determined to be wicked, as he was in other movies. There is a lot of harrowing business in a meat-packing plant, with dangerous saws and hooks on all sides, people getting killed by them, etc. So the menace is not spared. This is a solid if light-weight B thriller.

Id like to think Altman (24 at the time) wrote that Mike Carter listening to the Exposition Lady on the Many Records scene himself (it slaps, especially the bit where the woman talks to the person listening in), plus that amusing set piece at the eye doctor's office.

Bodyguard is somewhat Meat and Potatoes 'Some-Mug-Set-Me-Up-Ill-Find-Out-Who-Can't-Go-To-the-Cops-Whaddaya-Crazy piece of pulp, elevated by some decent if occasionally uncanny direction from Fleischer (watch for those EXTREME close-ups and quick zoom-ins - say, maybe this did influence Altman after all) and in particular Tierney, who plays this ex-homicide detective turned bodyguard turned Man Solving His Own Frame-Job with some quick skills, a bit of wit and a number of swift punches and choke-holds (not to mention disguises, re that Eye doctor scene). Everyone else here is more or less serviceable, but his presence single-handedly makes it compelling; in another world, he couldve been a more hard-boiled Dick Tracy.

I'm not sure if it would be quite as memorable without its star and a few above average twists (and one I called halfway through... Yeah, I wasn't quick on the draw this time). A true blue B movie that goes by like reading a crumpled paperback on a commute.

(Really, much as I kid, the Altman part is a bit of a foot-note, one of four credited writers, and he didn't go back to movies gor another nine years)

Tough-talking mug Lawrence Tierney is the hero of this quick and dirty cheapy from 1948. He plays a detective who's kicked off the force for being a hot head, and gets a job moonlighting as the bodyguard for an elderly lady (Elizabeth Risdon), matriarch and acting manager of a large and successful meat-packing company, whose life is being threatened for unknown reasons. Of course it's not long before we and Tierney realize that he's been set up to be the fall guy for a crooked plot to swindle the company away from the old lady, and he helps crack the case with the help of his girl Friday Priscilla Lane.

"Bodyguard" is almost laughingly short and inconsequential, but it's an awful lot of fun. There's nothing especially striking about the writing or visual style, but yet it doesn't feel anonymous either. There are some clever set pieces to distinguish the film, most notably a scene that takes place in an optometrist's office and that uses some clever lighting and framing. And Tierney has a cute relationship with Lane, and it's refreshing to see a woman in a film like this take an active role in solving the crime rather than simply be someone the leading man has to rescue.

Robert Altman (credited as Robert B. Altman) wrote the story for this film at the ripe old age of 25.

Far from a must see, but enjoyable if you can find it.

Grade: B-