The Fool Killer

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!

I was a part of the filming of this movie.I appeared in at least one scene as an "extra" and was there for the filming of many other scenes.It was filmed on location in Knox County and Blount County in Tennessee in 1963 and premiered at Tennessee Theater in Knoxville TN in April 1965.The outside of Dirty Jim's house was filmed at my home place at Concord Tennessee.The cast did an excellent job.My rating is high for the cast.The plot is good but could have been handled a bit better in my opinion.Overall,this movie is worth seeing.This movie portrays a young boy befriending people while he is on his own and shows a scared but loving kid.

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.