Incident in an Alley

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.

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.

"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.

This unsung little movie released over 60 years ago by United Artists manages to be both an intelligent, very convincing crime film as well as delivering the pleasures of a traditional B-movie. Its Rod Serling story delivers psychological motivations that hold up well, while low-budget expert Edward L. Cahn wraps it all up0 neatly in a whirlwind final reel of sheer pleasure.

With an outstanding performance by Virgina Christine as the mother of a young teen shot dead fleeing by our hero, a soulful, neurotic cop,the script smoothly shows both sides of a deadly situation: the difficulty of the police to make split second decisions, and the sentiment accorded the victims. Our hero clearly did the best he could but almost everyone turns against him because he shot a 14-year-old in the back.

He's feeling pags of guilt, even though acquitted in a trial for manslaughter that makes both sides of the case equally defensible. Only gimmick that the film relies on is his yeoman efforts to solve an adjacent robbery/homicide which explains and ties up all loose ends.

To manipulate an audience, both B-movies and increasingly Hollywood blockbusters strain credulity with arbitrary motivation and weird plot twists to maximize thrills. This sober little picture goes the opposite route, treating the viewer fairly and giving one something to think about by movie's end.

An usual sidelight here helps bolster my theory about the continuum represented in the entertainment industry. Made by a B-movie team with extremely low-budget, this film was nevertheless released by United Artists, one of the major film distributors, not an exploitation company. And the star giving a sensitive performance playing the cop was Chris Warfield, who several years later became a sexploitation movie producer and director, starting in softcore and graduating to XXX porn, with several excellent Adult movies in his resume. It's all part of showbiz.

Low budget cop movie which pops up on Showtime now and then concerns a cop who shoots and kills a young juvenile delinquent and how he deals with it. The most amusing part is the big city 'precinct' set which looks like the receptionist area at a dentist office.