Customer Reviews

Forgotten Noir 3 (Shadow Man / Shoot to Kill)

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VCI Entertainment presents "Forgotten Noir Vol. 3", a Kit Parker Double Features of (Shadow Man (1953) & Shoot to Kill (1947) --- (Dolby digitally remastered)...featuring top performances by actors to die for from the '40s and '50s with outstanding drama and screenplays...from little known films that will leave you intrigued with all the suspense...so pop some popcorn, sit back and enjoy the movie.

First up we have Anglo-Amalgamated Films feature "SHADOW MAN" (aka: "Street of Shadows") (1957) (72 min. B/W)...under Richard Vernon (Director / Screenwriter), W.H. Williams (Producer), Laurence Meynell (Book Author), Philip Grindrod (Cinematographer), Eric Spear (Composer (Music Score), Geoffrey Muller (Editor) ----- the cast includes Victor Maddern (Danny 'Limpy' Thomas), Cesar Romero (Luigi ), Kay Kendall (Barbara Gale), Edward Underdown (Insp. Johnstone), Simone Silva (Angele Abbe), Liam Gaffney (Fred Roberts), Robert Cawdron (Sgt. Hadley), John Penrose (Capt. Gerald Gale), Bill Travers (Nigel Langley), Eileen Way (Mrs. Toms), Paul Hardtmuth (Poppa), Annaconda (Darrell), Molly Hamley-Clifford (Starry Darrell) ----- our story is based on "The Creaking Chair" by Laurence Mynell made into a British film "Street of Shadows" when Richard Lippert released the feature in the USA was changed to "Shadow Man:", but the fine cast and script remained happily in place ... Cesar Romero is a casino owner and finds himself mixed up in the murder of his former girlfriend, and he is the prime suspect ... now comes the time when Cesar will play detective and bring in the killer to the Hammer Studio with all the trimmings ... Kay Kendall who was married to Rex Harrison has top billing before she became an international star ... the top lineup goes to Victor Maddern as Limpy, wonderful part as the sympathetic character who is always picked on makes for a very atmospheric and dark thriller drenched in a frame up ... Maddern makes the most of this role as he is already a well known actor in the UK . . . . . another Hammer Film Noir, not to be forgotten remains in the genre we all crave to see again, again and again.

BIOS:
1. Victor Maddern (aka: Victor Jack Maddern)
Date of birth: 16 March 1926 - Seven Kings, Ilford, Essex, England, UK
Date of death: 22 June 1993 - London, England, UK
2. Cesar Romero (aka: Cesar Julio Romero Jr.)
Date of birth: 15 February 1907 - New York, New York
Date of death: 1 January 1994 - Santa Monica, California
3. Kay Kendall (aka: Justine Kay Kendall-McCarthy)
Date of birth: 21 May 1926 - Withernsea, Yorkshire, England, UK
Date of death: 6 September 1959 - London, England, UK
4. Richard Vernon (Director)
Date of birth: 7 March 1925 - Reading, Berkshire, England, UK
Date of death: 4 December 1997 - Reading, Berkshire, England, UK

BONUS FEATURES:
1. Photo Gallery
2. Movie Trivia
3. Cesar Romero Bio
4. Inside Lippert Part 2
5. Terror Street (Trailer)
6. They were So Young (Trailer)
7. Unholy Four (Trailer)
8. Motor Patrol (Trailer)

Second on the double bill is a Robert L. Lippert Picture release "SHOOT TO KILL" (1947) (64 min. B/W)....under William A. Berke (Director / Producer), Edwin V. Westrate (Screenwriter), Ben Kline (Cinematographer), Darrell Calker (Composer (Music Score), David Chudnow (Musical Direction/Supervision), Arthur A. Brooks (Editor), William Glasgow (Art Director), Tommy Thompson (Set Designer) ----- the cast includes Russell Wade (George Mitchell), Susan Walters (Marian Langdon), Edmund MacDonald (Lawrence Dale), Douglas Blackley (Dixie Logan), Vince Barnett (Charlie Gill), Nestor Paiva (Gus Miller), Charles Trowbridge (John Forsythe), Harry Brown (Jim Forman), Harry V. Cheshire (Mike Blake), Robert Riordan (Ed Carter), Joe Devlin (Smokey), Eddie Foster (Bingo), Frank O'Connor (Clem), Gene Rodgers (Piano Player), Sammy Stein (Blackie), Ted Hecht (Al Collins) . . . . . our story involves a frame by DA Edmund MacDonald and who is the fall guy Douglas Blackley ... what has reporter Russell Wade to do with this Poverty Row film noir ... what possible help can Susan Walters bring to the Hammer Film lot ... is there love in the air between Wade and Walters while they bring MacDonald to justice before the final reel ...the good script from Edwin Westrate has some twists and turns that keep the audience guessing until the very end . . . . . all courtesy of VCI Entertainment, who in my humble opinion is the best there is in restoring early serials and film noir features like this one.

BIOS:
1. Russell Wade
Date of birth: 21 June 1917 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Date of death: Still Living
2. Susan Walters (aka: Luana Walters)
Date of birth: 22 July 1912 - Los Angeles, California
Date of death: 19 May 1963 - Los Angeles, California
3. William A. Berke (Director)
Date of birth: 3 October 1903 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Date of death: 15 February 1958 - Los Angeles, California

BONUS FEATURES:
1. Shooting Schedule
2. Photo Gallery
3. Luana Walters Wardrobe Plot
4. Day Player and Stuntman Contracts
5. Original Script
6. Russell Wade Bio
7. Luana Walters Bio
8. William Berke Bio

Great job by VCI Entertainment for releasing the "Forgotten Noir Vol. 3" (Shadow Man (1953) & Shoot to Kill (1947)), digital transfere with a clean, clear and crisp print...looking forward to more of the same from the '40s and '50s vintage...order your copy now from Amazon or VCI Entertainment, stay tuned once again with a top notch "Classic Film Noir" that only VCI Entertainment (King of the Serials) can deliver--- Film Noir Classics, all my heroes have been gumshoe detectives!

Total Time: 139 mins on DVD ~ VCI Home Video KPF 549 ~ (9/26/2006)

I really ordered this title in order to acquire a better print of "Shoot to Kill" than I had previously enoyed on Alpha Video, and I was not disappointed. Picture quality and sound were noticeably improved in the VCI version. The movie itself poses an intriguing question in the very opening scene: What were the district attorney, his wife, and a sought-after felon all doing in the same car wreck in which all were killed? The plot keeps you guessing about the answer until the very end. It packed a lot of entertainment into a little over an hour's running time.

Nice B movie with a couple of twists. What stood out was the piano man, Gene Rodgers. His two minute tune, Rajai Blues, was worth the price of the DVD by itself. I had my two boys watch it and they both enjoyed it. Can't find the song on CD unfortunately.

Good collection and my friends enjoyed the films more than I, but I watched and have loaned this DVD to others to view. Delivery of this DVD very prompt.

Shadow Man, The (1953):
Shadow Man gives mediocrity a bad name. It's one of those low-budget British movies that starred over-the-hill American actors in the hope audiences in the U.S. would want to see one more time a fading George Raft, Dane Clark, Zachary Scott or, in this case Cesar Romero. Shadow Man (called Street of Shadows in Britain) doesn't bother with logic, dramatic tension, chemistry between stars and effective story telling. It just plops down various elements and actors, then walks away. The plot is no more than this: A Soho saloon owner named Luigi (Cesar Romero) finds himself involved with the murder of an old flame. He helps the police. They catch the killer. The plot moves so slowly that it takes 45 minutes to get to the murder and the movie only runs 76 minutes. I'd say that Kay Kendall is the best thing in the movie, but she's miscast, awkwardly used and the idea that she and Romero will find true love is as misguided as the writers were.

Luigi owns a carnival-themed pin-table nightclub in Soho. I'm not sure what a pin-table saloon is but wealthy people in evening dress go there to drink, eat cotton candy and play a jukebox. He's cool, smooth, decent and isn't shy about using his fists when he needs to. The idea of simply going to the police never occurs to him. We assume he's a relative of the screenwriters. Kay Kendall plays Barbara Gale, an upper-class wife whose upper-class friends are arrogant and entitled and whose husband is condescending and petulant. Confusingly, at one moment she's an elegant partygoer, the next she's a hausfrau in an apron. Victor Maddern is Limpy Thomas, an off-center gofer for Luigi, not too bright and a little too intent on beautiful girls. Limpy looks like a cross between John Garfield with a hangover and Elisha Cook Jr. He definitely is from the Cook School of Slow-Witted Creeps. Care to guess who the killer is? There's not the slightest attempt to disguise the obvious. The movie's two positives are the fine noirish cinematography and the use of a harmonica in the background music.

Shoot to Kill (1947):
When the police reach the site of the car crash, a car they've been chasing through the night and exchanging gunfire with, they find Lawrence Dale, the man who will become District Attorney in the morning, his wife Marian, and the notorious gangster Dixie Logan. Dale and Logan are dead. Marian is rushed to a hospital seriously injured. What's going on?

All will become clear in 64 minutes if you watch this tidy, well-constructed, low-budget programmer from 1947. The acting isn't much and neither is the dialogue, but the story is well constructed, there are lots of intriguing flashbacks and the direction is taut, unhurried and doesn't waste a minute. For a quickie with a five-day shooting schedule, Shoot to Kill is a fine example of why some people, me included, love these Forties, bottom-of-the-bill movies.

The story is all about Lawrence Dale (Edmund MacDonald), a corrupt and ambitious assistant district attorney; Marian Langton (Luanna Walters, billed as Susan Walters), who shows up one morning looking for a job as Dale's secretary; and Mitch Mitchell (Russell Wade), a smart, crime-fighting reporter for The Evening Register. With the ailing DA about to step down, we quickly learn that his replacement, Dale, is in cahoots with some big-boy gangsters, and that the lot of them plan to run the town. But Dale makes a mistake. To put away Dixie Logan on a murder charge, a step that will enhance his reputation as a crime-fighter, Dale manufactures false evidence and bribes two witnesses. It's not long before Logan has busted out of jail with payback in mind. Then Dale starts getting romantic with his new secretary, a woman with a mind of her own. And to top it off, as Dale and his gangster partners plot murder, ace reporter Mitchell gets on their trail.

All this could be as stale as a week-old banana-nut muffin. Shoot to Kill, however, keeps things fresh by using flashbacks, even flashbacks within flashbacks, to make all the plotting and machinations intriguing. There's even a twist at the end that's not telegraphed and yet is believable.

Shoot to Kill is B-level movie-making in all its cheap glory. There's not an actor in sight who ever escaped the low-budget movie mill. Even some of their stories have a kind of B-movie quality. Russell Wade, for instance, was never much of an actor in all the movies he made, most of them in unbilled parts and then as a lead. Still, he had a friendly, likable personality. When he was 31, a year after this movie, Wade packed it in as an actor and became a highly successful real estate man in Palm Springs. Luanna Walters, on the other hand, after years of trying and not succeeding to break out of B-movie purgatory (she played the female interest in a lot of westerns), died of alcoholism when she was 51. Where's Nicole Kidman when we need her, to star in The Luanna Walters Story? Sadly, the movie, Wade and Walters have been long forgotten.

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The video transfer of Shadow Man looks fine. The video transfer of Shoot to Kill is awful. Both movies actually can be called noirs, though not especially good ones.