Sparo per uccidere

Edmund MacDonald wants to be the district attorney. It's not for love of the city or the law, but an opportunity to squeeze people for money. He sends mobster Robert Kent to prison, but Kent escapes and vanishes, and a crime wave begins. MacDonald's wife and secretary, Luana Walters gains information on what is going on. She cannot act overtly, because a wife cannot testify against her husband, but she can pass the word onto Robert Wade and let him investigate.

It's an intriguing idea for a film noir, but the script isn't up to it: it's confusingly written, with twists pulled seemingly out of nowhere to explain why someone is suddenly acting differently.

What director William Berke can do about it is to give cinematographer Benjamin Kline his head, and Kline produces a heck of a visual feast, lots of dark streets and low-lit actors that lend a beautiful gloss to the movie. It's not enough to save it. However, it makes it worth watching.

This cheapie noir thriller about crooked district attorneys and gangster chiefs is surprisingly good, considered it was made on a zero budget with no reason to aim high. Of course, it is completely corny, but there are a lot of expressionistic camera angles, and the many dollying shots of men walking at night are surprisingly effective with a single bright spotlight on the face and everything else pitch black. As is usual with these over the top late forties cheapies, the impact depends largely upon an excessive, almost parodic, use of 'mood music'. When things begin to get dangerous, don't worry about looking for clues on the screen, as the orchestra will tell us instead. One wonders if the script actually said: 'At this point, the musical score will become hysterical, so that the audience knows someone is about to get killed.' The chief reason for watching this film is to see and hear the spectacular performance on the piano of Gene Rodgers, a black boogie player who was one of the best. It is jaw-dropping stuff. Fats Waller, eat your heart out! Rodgers plays two of his own compositions, 'Ballad of the Bayou' and 'Rajah's Blues'. His fingers move faster than the speed of light, and he isn't even looking. If only the whole thing had been Rodgers, we could have done without the film. The film's script is surprising in its ingenuity in places, and has some snappy dialogue, showing that somebody tried. The most innovative scene is where an assistant district attorney dictates a letter to his secretary. It is a passionate love letter proposing marriage, and she wonders to whom he intends to send it. He asks her if she thinks it is OK, and she says she thinks it is beautiful. Then he tells her it is for her! Great scene! If only the romance had been genuine, however, as both turn out to be crooks in their own way. This film contains serious contradictions, as it oscillates between making some characters appear sympathetic and then suddenly exposing them as baddies. The story must have started out as a tough crime thriller and then some frustrated sentimentalist wrote the script and could not help himself, he just had to have some love scenes, and the fact that the characters were all wrong for this could not and would not deter him. The producer clearly didn't notice. Well, if you like brilliant boogie, you really can't afford to miss this. And there will be people who will also enjoy the film. It is all a matter of what you expect, and if you start out expecting a corny mini-budgeted noir thriller with some unexpected good points, you will be happy.

Unremarkable but entertaining enough minor noir. Russell Wade is spirited as the newspaper man with a cause, Edmund MacDonald is the aspiring District Attorney but sales a little close to the wind and spends much time brooding in a Vincent Price sort of way. Luana Walters is the girl in the middle and halfway through the film brings everything to life with one of the very many twists. Unfortunately it has been a rather slow beginning and before the end tips back down. There is always an inherent problem with movies that are flashbacks and this one is no exception. Worth it though for Walters' performance when for a time the film revolves around her and we seem to be going places.

I expected little from William Berke's 1947 Shoot To Kill. In fact, my expectations were so low, I left the DVD until late at night. I was just about to retire, but thought I'd take a quick look at the opening sequence. The movie hooked me straight away. Not only was Berke's direction way more polished than his norm, the movie was most atmospherically photographed by Benjamin Kline. Deft writing by Edwin V. Westrate also helped, and the actors were great too, especially Edmund MacDonald (who reminded me of a young Citizen Kane), heroine Luana Walters, reporter Russell Wade, gangster Robert Kent, the boogie-woogie piano player Gene Rodgers, and is-he-honest-or-is-he district attorney Charles Trowbridge (in noirish close-ups, giving the best performance of his lengthy career).

Plot-- A woman injured in a car crash that's killed her two companions relates her story in flashback to a reporter. It concerns a corrupt Asst. DA, an escaped convict, plus competing racketeers, all of which leads to murder.

No one expects Oscar bait from the likes of poverty row Lippert. But as 40's thick ear, this is a pretty good one. The characters are more than one dimensional, the photography often imaginative, along with a lightning bit of jazz piano from Bob Rogers whose fingers defy gravity. Russell Wade may get top billing, but it's really Edmond MacDonald's movie. His Assistant DA may be a heckuva schemer, yet he gets pushed around as much as he does the pushing. Seems like no one's in control of much of anything, a nice departure from the usual. In fact, the only uncompromised character, reporter Mitch (Wade), is only incidental to the plot. It's not goodies vs. baddies; it's mainly clashes of self-interest getting thrashed out.

Yes, the twists, turns, and pop-up names are sometimes hard to follow. Then too, I'll be darned if I know why a guy (Mitch) or gal goes walking alone in the woods at night, especially when they hear noises. Still, the effect's a perennial nail-biter. Anyway, pedestrian director Berke distinguishes himself from his usual, while the battery of craftsmen doing the visuals also come through. All in all, the results are better than expected from the likes of Lippert and an obscure cast of principals.