The Killer Is Loose (1956)

Posted by Curt

When I first saw this movie a few years ago, I mainly enjoyed it because of Wendell Corey's excellent performance. He never coasted for one minute in his character, and just played his role straight ahead to the hilt. In this picture he portrays Leon Poole, a clerk at a bank. The day of an attempted robbery at his bank, his old army sarge shows up to see him. Well, Leon attempts to stop the bank thieves and gets knocked in the head for it. After this happens his sergeant states he'll never make fun of him again, like he did when he commanded him in his unit. But that was just an act that Leon put on for everyone, because as it turned out, the policeman on the case, Joseph Cotten, found out that poor ole Leon was the inside man on the robbery. Once this happens, there's a big shoot-out at the place where Leon Poole lives with his wife, and his wife gets accidentally killed in the ensuing gun battle with her husband. Then Leon goes to trial for robbery, assault and attempted murder and is given 30 years in prison. As he is walking out of the courtroom, he glares at Cotten and his wife, played by Rhonda Fleming. He tells them both that's he gonna fix their wagon for good, and you just know he means it. Cotten blows it off because he's heard this song and dance before, but his wife is truly bothered by this. Then Leon Poole heads to prison where he gets his act together and walks the straight and narrow and after that he gets put on an honor farm. After he's been there for awhile, he is able to escape by murdering a guard with a blade that he broke off from a hoe. Then with the stolen truck that he uses to make his escape with, he heads to a nearby farm and kills a farmer and takes his clothes and his pickup truck, and drives to the city.

Leon has only one goal in mind and that's to take care of Cotten's wife in return for the death of his own wife. Before doing this however, he first must make a side trip to his old sergerant's place to take care of some unfinished business. While he's waiting for the sarge to return home, he has the sarge's wife scared half to death with all his wild talk.

When the sergeant finally does get home he blasts him with his gun, causing the milk bottle to splatter all over the kitchen along with the sergeant himself. What a mess. After this happens, the sergerant's wife faints dead away and Poole grabs her raincoat and puts it on. By now, Poole is a total nutcase and he heads for Cotten's home. The police are hot on his trail, and they have it figured out that Poole will be going after either Cotten or his wife. There are cops hidden all around Cotten's home as Leon Poole stalks Cotten's wife as she walks up to their house. When Leon decides to make a move on her, the cops blow away poor old Poole right there on the front lawn.

When I saw this movie the first time, the two key scenes that really stuck in my mind were the creepy stalking scene where Wendell Corey is dressed up like a woman following Rhonda Fleming along the rain slicked sidewalks at night. The other disturbing scene is when Leon Poole shoots down his former sergeant while he clutches a milk bottle, and then the bottle shatters all over the place and pots and pans go flying off the wall. That was very scary. This film was directed by Budd Boetticher, who had done many western movies with Randolph Scott, but very few film noirs that I know of.

A terrific movie from beginning to end in my imho. I also enjoyed the totally flat 50's photography. Highly recommended for all those noir fans who have yet to see it.