La città della paura

Nice and well paced B thriller , one of those in which you enjoy the way the directors manage to overcome the obvious script and budget limitations to create a personal piece of work , as much as the film itself . It happened in the past and still happens today , what could have turned into a routine movie it's saved by an skilled director who is able to add some spark to what otherwise could be an unremarkable film

Lerner was an absolute expert on this task and It's quite appealing to see this in action and how he manages to create and maintain the tension throughout this film . Literally he builds it out from nothing , no budget and based on a script that you probably came across on a dozen of movies before . All action and trouble comes from an small cylinder allegedly containing heroine worth 1 million USD , which has been stolen by a convict during his prison break . It contains a highly radioactive material instead which causes the alarm and the relentless pursuit of the convict .

Don't get any wrong impression , this is a classic man on the run B thriller , and as such there are some incongruences but mostly it's filmed imaginatively enough to offset the lack of budget and keep the interest It can be compared to what happened with Budd Boetticher , both get some attention when they received some props from Scorssesse himself , so that shed some light to their careers which thus far have been quite neglected by the general public.

A tawdry low budget pot boiler featuring dynamite performances by Vince Edwards and a similarly game supporting cast. I know Edwards is probably most famous for his heroic Ben Casey role, but he sure chewed up a lot of upholstery in movies like this one and MURDER BY CONTRACT the year before. A lot of the charm comes in watching this police procedural unfold. Lots of seedy low lives generally keep up the off color flavor and the suspense builds nicely over the course of time.

Some of the discussion of radioactivity is dated, but the cannister makes a great macguffin for the gruff talking' square-jawed Men of Law to pursue. It really wouldn't have taken much to raise this from a guilty pleasure and enjoyable cautionary tale to something along the lines of KISS ME DEADLY, but it's almost more quaint to see this mostly forgotten and obscure b-movie in its under-appreciated present form, if you can find it. The last shot of the movie is quite a hoot! Fine, jazzy musical score by a then-very young Jerry Goldsmith.

In 1958, director Irving Lerner scraped together enough money to make two poverty row features that Columbia released. The first, Murder By Contract, is one of the fine sleeper classics of low-budget film-making, Vince Edwards as a professional hit-man.. By virtue of that film, Andrew Sarris includes a paragraph on Lerner in his seminal book on film directors and auteur theory, American Cinema.

Unfortunately, the second film doesn't measure up to the first. Still, City of Fear has its moments, particularly in the hand-held location shots that lend some much needed pacing. And that's a key problem with this thriller-- it stalls whenever the scenes shift to the offices where Archer and Talbot as police officials add little energy needed to rev up the chase. Thus we get a kind of jerky effect that can't sustain the story momentum.

And a good story premise it is, as the authorities try to track down Edwards before he can loose a big dose of radio-active cobalt on LA. In my book, Edwards was an interesting actor at this early stage, a genuinely commanding presence in a lot of better-than-average B-films. There's also the under-rated Kathie Browne who could be a pixie one minute and a hellion the next (though her part here is small). Steven Ritch too, is an interestingly obscure figure, collaborating on a number of B-level scripts as well as acting in them. And what guy could pass up a chance at the really luscious Patricia Blair-- move over Marilyn!

Anyway, it looks like Sarris was right-- Lerner was a one-shot wonder. Nonetheless, he manages a few neat tricks on display here. All things considered, this minor thriller is still worth a look-see, even 50 years later.

Pulpy, wildly overwrought, but entertaining co-feature from Columbia has a pre-"Ben Casey" Vince Edwards starring as a convict who breaks out of San Quentin with a container he thinks is "a pound of 100% snow", but instead of heroin it's actually radioactive Cobalt 60 and any exposure could decimate Los Angeles. Not a compact thriller (even at 75 minutes!), this suspense film is full of behind-the-wheel montages and bits of generic police business. Edwards smolders like a reckless mad-dog stud, yet when he's required to disguise himself as a businessman with glasses, he's adept and convincing at this transition. The other actors in the cast aren't as versatile, and the mechanical writing and directing certainly doesn't liven them up (they're all stock figures, though Vince's girlfriend does get in a few funny wisecracks down at the police station). Photographed by Lucien Ballard, the movie has a great, gritty look full of L.A.'s neighborhoods and back streets, and the tension does manage to build successfully even though just about everything in the picture is second-rate. **1/2 from ****

When I was five years old I developed a pain in my stomach. The pain would come and go for a few days. During the last afternoon of day camp, the pains got worse. The Nurse called my Mom as I began to wail in pain. The sharp pangs against my stomach wall were excruciating. They rushed me to the hospital. The Doctors examined me and asked if I ingested anything? They gave me sedative and took my blood, which became an issue. I finally let them prick my finger. The Nurse asked me what I like to do and I said to her that I enjoy playing in the sand, building castles and roads and such. The nurse's eyes open wide as if I solved the world problems. Along the genre of film noir despite the year, this movie is an excellent example of a period piece. Pre- Kennedy era Los Angeles with the cars and wardrobe of a bygone era our main Character Vince Edwards is on the run, Hiding holding a canister of death and unbeknownst to himself, leaving a trail of (rads) radiation and illness to whomever he comes in contact with. The few that he physically murders are the lucky ones; the alternative would be a slow cancerous death. Film plot will hold your interest. You are curious, wondering how long our star crook can hang on. Jerry Goldsmith's jazzy music adds to the flavor of the film. All in all Vince Edwards s shows his range of acting skill as a heavy as a race against time is essential in returning the deadly canister and sparing a city. This movie will hold your interest. The hook here is how long would our drug dealing convict hold on until the radiation from the cannister gets the better of him. This film reminded me of the pains in my stomach that happened more frequently as the days went on. I didn't know that a tape worm was growing inside of me and had to be addressed by a physician, but I was only 6 years old. Our Vince Ryker character didn't realize he was getting weaker by the hour.