L'assassin sans visage

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 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...

It's been a long time since I last saw Richard Fleischer's "Follow Me Quietly" on TV with commercial breaks making it seem longer than its 60 minute running time.

Looking at it again last week via a Warner Archive DVD that sure looks a lot better than the copy I saw years ago, my first reaction was one of "style over substance" but that's hardly a knock, and actually common for me when it comes to noir. This is really a programmer showing the talent of a director with aspirations, or as Fleischer claimed "This is the film that, above all, increased my knowledge of the trade. I learned how to organize a film." One can see that he was handed a script that is fairly routine, despite Anthony Mann sharing the credit for story. But Fleischer manages to add a few touches here and there to make an impression. The bit in policeman William Lundigan's apartment with the female reporter trying to get some story leads is quite suggestive although the two don't even so much as get into a clinch.

Lundigan, along with partner Jeff Corey, are on the trail of a serial killer known only as "The Judge" and in piling up what few clues they have, they manage to create a dummy that is the killer's size and appropriately dressed based on thread samples found - it's just missing a face. One eerie segment has Lundigan talking to the dummy until Corey walks in and warns him that he's bordering on being as crazy as the killer. But the scene doesn't end there however you'll have to watch it without my spoilers. I will say that here Fleischer does demonstrate his awareness that a film can be more than the sum of its parts.

However that point is teased several times in the film - that Lundigan and the killer may be of the same ilk. Lundigan is so unhinged perhaps to even allow a suspect who is confessing to demonstrate the method of strangulation that he used on a victim. Douglas Spencer makes good use of his minimal screen time in this segment. Even a waitress comments on a pattern of behavior that the cop shares with the criminal.

As Howard Hawks has said, a good film should have three good scenes and no boring scenes. In that respect, Fleischer doesn't let us down, even if a few scenes are the clichéd montage bits of cops pursuing leads, interviewing and pounding the pavement. You have to move the action forward somehow, even in a film that runs only an hour.

There's a mix of location shots (especially good in the finale) and studio sets to represent what we can presume to be Los Angeles. I'm just about certain that "The Judge" lived on the same block that Peter Lorre terrorized in "Stranger on the Third Floor." Dorothy Patrick plays the plucky reporter, she's quite appealing and manages to stay out of the way when told and thus avoiding the need for the cop to rescue the clueless female. In fact she's quite helpful when Lundigan gets a new lead and it's he who struck me as clueless on this point. Jeff Corey shines as Lundigan's partner and walks away with the film with ease.

Interesting B movie starring William Lundigan and Dorothy Patrick about a police detective's search for a serial killer called "The Judge."

Gritty city scenes (although as one poster points out, it was probably an RKO set) enhance the atmosphere, and it's one of the things that makes "Follow Me Quietly" unusual.

Two more items of interest: A very exciting finale and the twist of having the police make a dummy model from everything they know about the perpetrator. In one scene, Lundigan is talking to the dummy's back, and it turns out to actually be the killer.

Lundigan was a good looking, poor man's Joel McCrea, perfect to be a detective in real life but not much of an actor. He doesn't exude much energy. Patrick, an attractive blonde, neither wildly glamorous or beautiful, gives a spirited performance as a tabloid reporter.

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.