El asesino de tontos

It is the post-Civil War south. 12-year-old orphan George Mellish (Edward Albert) runs away from his brutal foster home. His is first befriended by poor Dirty Jim Helliman who tells many tales including "The Fool Killer". He encounters many characters and one is war veteran Milo Bogardus (Anthony Perkins) who lost his memories.

First of all, the kid is pretty good for his debut. Child actors can be a lottery at this time. This is a string of encounters and adventures. Perkins is one of them and he has his oddness on full display. His shadowed climax is a little on the nose. I like the little girl and I like Dirty Jim. Maybe they should rearrange the sequencing.

Orphaned Edward Albert (in his first credited screen performance) rooms away from his foster home and meets an assortment of odd people: Henry Hull in full Old Coot mode; amnesiac, paranoid Civil War veteran Antony Perkins; fire-and-brimstone revival preacher Arnold Moss; and kindly married storekeepers Dana Elcar and Salome Jens.

With a definite air of director Servando Gonzalez having seen NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, giving free rein to his actors Albert gives a remarkable performance at the age of 14 as the protagonist. By the time he encounters Elcar and Miss Jens, the array of over-the-top performances makes their deliberately restrained choices seem outlandish, and perhaps cunning. You're left wondering, after the malign and malicious encounters can they really be what they seem to be.

The Fool Killer is not for all tastes, but the current high cachet for no-budget indy efforts does give it a certain charm that its original (small) audiences may have overlooked. The rather uneven tale of a wandering orphan (Edward Albert) who crosses paths with a disturbed Civil War vet (Anthony Perkins in undisguised "Psycho" mode), the movie has a hard time deciding whether to emphasize its suspenseful overtones, its elegiac coming-of-age elements, or its somewhat loopy character vignettes (by pros like Salome Jens and Henry Hull, who has a field day as a--very literally-- dirty old man).

Young Albert (son of actor Eddie) is fine and surprisingly natural as the clueless kid, and while Tony Perkins does seem very much on Norman Bates auto-pilot here (almost certainly by request), he is still eerily sympathetic as a mysterious drifter with severe post-traumatic issues.

Even though the whole is something less than the sum of its parts, this film is by no means a loser. It's full of rich vignettes (take a look at the tent-revival scene!) and colorful characters, and these for the most part outweigh its moments of pretentiousness and occasional murkiness of motivation. No, it's not "Night of the Hunter"--but on the other hand, it's not "Night of the Lepus" either!

This beautifully crafted film was unfortunately buried in an extremely limited release at the time, but it deserves to be viewed and celebrated.

The story, which could have been written by William Faulkner, follows the travels and coming of age of an orphan in the post Civil War era.

Played beautifully by the pre-teen Edward Albert, long before his star-making role in "Butterflies Are Free," George is a young hero who demands the viewer's attention and sympathy in every scene.

Anthony Perkins leads the strong supporting cast as the Civil War veteran suffering from PTSD, who may or may not be dangerous, who develops a strong bond with the boy.

The film may have suffered from its lack of a clear cut sense of good and bad or right and wrong, but it is certain to resonate with viewers who appreciate the subtleties of good literature.

As a child, this film had an enormous impact on me. It's a wonderful piece of Americana, a folks tale enriched by beautiful and haunting images thanks to the great B&W photography, and though it is not on the same level as Night of the Hunter, it still has an interesting way of dealing with psychological archetypes. I would go as far as saying that in the portrayal of the way reality is transfigured by a child's imagination, this film is just as good - if not better - than this year's Pan's Labyrinth.

And then there is the immense Anthony Perkins. How sad and annoying that people to this day still use his Norman Bates as a milestone against which they measure the rest of his haunting work. They seem to forget that he had played some seriously tormented characters long before that one and just as well: Josh Birdwell in "Friendly Persuasion", Jim Piersall in "Fear Strikes Out" etc... His unique talents have often been wasted, but here he shines. I never saw any resemblance in his way of playing Milo to that other more celebrated character. Rather, it's a variation on his work in Friendly Persuasion, as if his Josh had gone terribly wrong - a portrait of broken youth, broken dreams, broken beauty. The scene by the river still haunts me to this day. As a child I envied Edward Albert Jr and thought he was very lucky, I wished I had an older brother like him.

I have seen it again when I was finally able to get my hands on a VHS copy. I had to concede that the screenwriters should have worked a lot harder, but I still found it haunting and beautiful, just like its unique star.