They Made Me a Killer

The plot's pretty conventional, but with an unusual wrinkle . An innocent guy is trapped into helping bank robbers execute a robbery, and now the cops are chasing him. As the pursuit goes on, he joins the robbers in their hiding spot. Now the question is which way will he go. Will he join the crooks or work with a girl friend to clear himself.

Hard to believe veteran leading man Lowery could work up such energy for a programmer considering he'd done about a hundred of them. But he does. In fact it's his energy and the glowing freshness of Barbara Britton that carry the film. Then too, Lowery's character, Durling, is none too moral, meaning he's really tempted to join the bad guys once he's on the lam. And that amounts to a good, human touch from outstanding scripter Dan Mainwaring. It also helps that director Thomas keeps things moving, though the corner shoot-out and the hospital escape appear awkwardly done. Add to the mix a fine supporting cast, especially spider woman Lane and housemother Risdon. But please tell me, where did wardrobe get that fur-collared overcoat that's about to swallow Lane's head and then maybe the world!

Looks like this is one of those 40's B's that was reaching for noir while remaining within the crime story genre. Anyway, the minor touches manage to lift results to the slightly-better- than-average category.

(In passing—I'd long thought the name Byron Barr in cast lists referred to an early Gig Young, the former being his real name, the latter his stage name. However, in researching this film, I discover there was in fact a second actor named Byron Barr who kept his original name, and he's the one in this movie. Of course, Gig Young remains the much better known of the two.)

Tom Durling (Robert Lowery) is tricked into becoming the getaway driver for a bank robbery. His car crashes and he is left unconscious while the gang flees. He is arrested but escapes and teams up with June (Barbara Britton) in order to prove his innocence and track down the gang responsible....

This film has 'B' movie written all over it. It takes you on a journey. It does it quickly and effectively with no dwelling on circumstance. It's one scene after another. The result is that you watch and then the film finishes. There is no feeling of any sort whatsoever once the film has finished. It's fast paced with a hilarious moment at the beginning of the film when Tom makes his escape from the hospital. Just watch how he treats poor Steve (Byron Barr) who is at death's door in a hospital bed. He has just tried to prove to the police that he has a good relationship with this man. It's priceless! The film isn't great quality and it's hard to see on occasion because of the lighting. It passes the time but nothing more.

A typical Hitchcock set-up: hero gets hijacked in a bank robbery, in the getaway the robbers kill a clerk, hero gets caught by the police and charged with the robbery, he runs away to eventually be rescued by a girl, who continuously saves the situation, combining her smartness with the hero's. Many scenes are shot in the dark when they constantly cut the fuses to make it difficult for the crooks, and you hear how hard they are fighting, but you cannot see a thing, until the fisticuffs are over with and the place is wrecked including some casualty. It is good for a B-thriller with appropriate music, but you wouldn't recommend it to anybody nor watch it again, no matter how much you missed on the way. But the trick with the juke-box heightens the quality of the plot and your interest, but still, you will be glad when it is all over.

Satisfying noir B-feature that does everything it needs to do in little more than an hour. The screenwriter billed here as Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring) was the screenwriter and original novelist of Build My Gallows High/Out of the Past, and also wrote The Big Steal and Baby Face Nelson among others. The dialogue is clipped and menacing ("We'll bump him on the way," one of the heavies says casually) and the often claustrophobic spaces are used to good effect. Robert Lowery, who played Batman in the 1948 movie serial, has the right air of the doomed noir hero initially caught between the hard-bitten gangster's moll and femme fatale, Betty, (portrayed perfectly by Lola Lane,) and the innocent and beautiful schoolteacher, June (Barbara Britton), who eventually decides to help him prove his innocence after he is unwittingly embroiled in a bank robbery which leaves two dead. The cast is uniformly good, and the tension never lets up. The DVD I saw was in very poor condition; I hope someone will set about restoring this film to its full glory. As Lem Dobbs said on the commentary to Double Indemnity: "There's no such thing as a bad film noir." This low-budget gem proves him right.

They Made Me a Killer is a 1946 noir starring Robert Lowery, Barbara Britton, and Lola Lane, directed by William C. Thomas.

Tricked into driving bank robbers from the crime scene, Tom Durling (Lowery) escapes the police and goes on the run, desperate to clear his name. He has the help of a woman (Britton) whose brother (Byron Barr) was killed during the shootout.

The two wind up finding the robbers hiding out in the basement of a restaurant owned by the mother (Elisabeth Risdon) of one of them.

The leads are likable. Lowery, who played Batman in 1948, has a natural quality. Lola Lane, in her final film, is good as the moll who pretends she's interested in purchase Tom's car, then has him park by the bank!

The best part takes place in the beginning, when Tom is being chased through the hospital

This was unfortunately a bad print so scenes done in the dark were too dark to figure out what was going on. The denouement was far-fetched, but we know from the start that Tom is an engineering expert.

A typical B noir with some good scenes.