Calling Homicide (1956)

Two homicide detectives search for a connection between the car-bombing murder of a fellow investigator and the mutilation murder of a much-hated owner of a modeling school.

Director:

Edward Bernds

Writer:

Edward Bernds (story)

Stars:

Bill Elliott, Kathleen Case, Don Haggerty

Cast

Cast overview:
Bill Elliott	...	Det. Sgt. Andy Doyle
Kathleen Case	...	Donna Graham
Don Haggerty	...	Det. Sgt. Mike Duncan
Jeanne Cooper	...	Darlene Adams
Myron Healey	...	Jim Haddix
Thomas Browne Henry	...	Allen Gilmore (as Thomas B. Henry)
Lyle Talbot	...	Tony Fuller
James Best	...	Det. Arnie Arnhoff
Almira Sessions	...	Mrs. Ida Dunsetter
Herb Vigran	...	Ray Engel
John Dennis	...	Benny Bendowski
Robert Bice	...	Det. Johnny Phipps
Mary Treen	...	Flo Burton - Script Girl
Stanley Adams	...	Peter von Elda

Storyline

The third of five films (Dial Red-O, Sudden Danger, Calling Homicide, Footsteps in the Night and Chain of Evidence in release order and released across a full period of two years) in which Bill Elliott played a detective lieutenant (Andy Flynn in the first one, Doyle in the others) in the Los Angeles homicide department) with all five produced by Ben Schwab but a different director on each one. Lieutenant Andy Doyle of the Los Angeles Sheriff;s homicide department, while investigation the mysterious dynamiting death of a young policeman, discovers that the strangling-murder of Francine Norman, owner of a modeling school, is linked with the first killing. While questioning those connected with the school, manager Darlene Adams, and executives Allen Gilmore and Tony Fuller, Lt. Doyle and his aide, Detective Sergeant Mike Duncan, find there is a blackmailing "baby racket" being run in conjunction with the school. Suspicion points to construction company owner Jim Haddix who had been in ...

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Plot Keywords:

detective | murder | evidence | extortion | sergeant | 

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Taglines:

THE BAIT...beautiful, innocent and damned! (original print ad)

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 September 1956 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Allied Artists Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Follows Sudden Danger (1955)

User Reviews

Hollywood-set police procedural like ‘50s TV with a bit more grit and oomph

An hour-long police procedural set in late-Chandler Los Angeles, Calling Homicide looks cheap and unstylish, like an episode of Perry Mason minus Raymond Burr, William Talman and Ray Collins (its cast is culled from from unsung bit-part players and brief-careered starlets, from veterans of crime programmers and Westerns – the lead goes to `Wild' Bill Elliott). But it has a Poverty-Row oomph to it and unfolds its story in a brisk, no-nonsense way.

The L.A. Sheriff's Department gets hit by a doubled-barreled blast: One of its detectives is incinerated by a car bomb in the station's parking lot, while up in Coldwater Canyon a woman's body is discovered, mutilated like the Black Dahlia victim of a decade earlier. (The plot's roots stretch back to post-war Hollywood. A script girl identifies a photo as coming from Universal's The Crooked Mile; could she mean Republic's The Last Crooked Mile of 1946?)

Galvanized into action, they identify the body as that of a former actress, now the ruthless proprietor of a `modeling' school – which turns out to be a cover for a black-market-baby (and blackmail) racket that the murdered detective had been investigating. There's no want of suspects, as they can't find anybody with a decent word to utter about the deceased. Still, nobody has the courage to sing; the few who consider it find themselves with very abbreviated futures....

Far worse hours have been recorded on film than Calling Homicide, a stripped-down crime story that shows how closely related B-movies and television dramas had become in the late-1950s, though this Hollywood product shows a bit more edge and energy than would be thought suitable for living-room consumption for years to come.