Incident in an Alley

"... The highlights and streaks are hurting my eyes." Yes, this is a pretty lame story about bad teenagers. The pivotal figure looks like Troy Donahue: More a surfer than a tough guy. Of course, times have changed in 25 years. But "The Blackboard Jungle" came earlier. And it still packs a wallop.

I love low-budget trash. This is low-budget but it seems to be part drive-in juvenile delinquent movie and half an urban "Tammy." The plot is OK. Not new by any means but it worked before and it works here. The actor playing the obsessed police officer is decent. His wife is done up so she looks more like a b-girl than a loving wife. She wears very short skirts, has a vacant look. All she needs is some gum to snap.

What I'm trying to say is that it all seems bogus. It doesn't feel as if the producers' hearts were in it. It was a quickie that might pull in a few bucks. And sometimes that Results in an exciting little movie. This one is little but it's not exciting.

Between 1959 and 1962, director Edward Cahn made MANY very-low-budget films for a production company that went under a few different names, but all were produced by Robert Kent. TCM did a salute to Cahn in 2001 and dug many of these up, including this one, INCIDENT IN AN ALLEY. Chris Warfield plays a police officer who breaks up what he thinks is a robbery and possibly an assault in an alley, and shoots one of the suspected robbers who runs away. That takes place in the first five minutes. After that, the film surveys exactly what happened, looks at the incident from multiple perspectives, has a trial where the officer is charged with manslaughter, and THEN starts another plot which becomes just as exciting as the first one, and finally it all comes to wild but satisfying close in just over an hour! Pardon my vagueness, but I don't want to give anything away. This film, written by the great Rod Serling, is a completely unexpected gem that does not go in any direction you expect it to. Shot on a few small sets, b-movie veteran Cahn keeps an exciting pace going, and the acting makes each character seem individual and real. In some ways this seems more like a play than an action film, but that's not surprising considering Serling's background in 1950s live TV and Cahn's background in VERY low budget films where talk and atmosphere make up for scenes that would be too expensive to shoot. As I wasn't expecting anything special, just a b-grade crime film, I was very pleasantly surprised at the care taken in the making of the film and in the many serious and complex issues it dealt with both intelligently and realistically. Bravo to writer Serling, director Cahn, and star Warfield for his little-known gem of a film.

The talents of up & coming TV scriptwriter Rod Serling and veteran 'B' director Edward L. Cahn made for pretty strange bedfellows in this Allied Artists quickie made with effective and low-keyed intelligence.

The title is really a misnomer as there (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) are in fact two incidents in the same alley that bookend the film, which actually devotes over half of it's running time to a courtroom drama in which the incident that gives the film its title - in which a trio of hoodlums rob a musical goods store with violence - which although in screen time is all over in less than five minutes is thereafter the subject of painstaking forensic analysis.

Bearing a passing resemblance to the case of Craig & Bentley this time its the policeman who pulled the trigger and has to deal with the consequences. To anyone familiar with Serling the depiction of office politics within the police department is characteristically sardonic.

"Incident in an Alley" is a very simply made film. The budget was small and the actors are mostly faces you won't recognize. However, because it has good writing and surprisingly good writing and direction, it's well worth your time.

The film begins with a burglary in progress. The police show up and suddenly teen delinquents are running about everywhere. In the confusion, one cop, Bill Joddy (Chris Warfield) repeatedly tells one of the gang to halt. Eventually, he fires warning shots and somehow a younger teen is hit and killed. Almost immediately, there is a huge uproar and folks are calling for the cop's head. The case goes to court but he is found innocent of responsibility in the death. But, he cannot live with himself and is stuck--alternately blaming himself and searching for more answers. See the film and see where this goes.

One of the only folks you probably would recognize if you grew up in the 40s, 50s or 60s is Virginia Christine (the dead boy's mother). She played a lot of characters on TV (such as in the original "Dragnet") and was also the spokesperson for Folger's Coffee for many years. Yup...she's Mrs. Olsen. Another familiar presence is Rod Serling--who wrote the original story. All in all, surprisingly good and worth your time.

A bunch of five young hoodlums break into a music shop to steal some precious instruments, they are surprised by the owner who is an old lady who is knocked down and never recovers consciousness before she dies, the five young scoundrels escape but the alarm is ringing, they just have time to hide their loot in an old deserted department store, when the police catches up with them, four manage to get away, but the fifth, a mere kid, runs into a lady who happens to go out at that moment, she screams, the boy continues running, the police shouts a warning that he will shoot if the boy doesn't stop, he doesn't stop, the police takes careful aim at his legs, but instead the boy is hit in his back and is instantly dead. The police officer is indicted for homicide, but all this is just the beginning.

The trial is very interesting, Virginia Christine as the mother of the dead boy giving a very sensitive and unforgettable performance, and she will return later in the film. Naturally Chris Warfield as the police officer can't stop worrying and brooding about the case, feeling guilty although he was acquitted, the trauma of his father's death, also a police officer shot by hoodlums, haunting him, until gradually the sky clears by a meticulous reconstruction of the entire incident, the fact that Chris Warfield's character as a very honest officer playing an important part. This is a jewel in the gutter of the asphalt jungle of the big city, tortured constantly to death by innumerable crimes all around the clock. A film like this, although a B-feature, is worth watching carefully indeed.