Fallguy (1962)

Director:

Donn Harling

Writers:

Richard DeLong Adams (story)
George Mitchell (story)

Genre:

Crime

Plot:

A teenager trying to help an accident victim finds himself enmeshed in political corruption and racketeering and charged with a murder he didn't commit. |

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Cast

Ed Dugan	...	Sonny Martin
George Mitchell	...	Carl Tamin (as George Andre)
Louis Gartner	...	Police Chief
Don Alderette	...	Sam Johnson
Madeline Frances	...	June Johnson
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Rex Anthony
Wes Carlson
Fabian Dean
George DeMoss
Liz DeMoss
Linda Dietrich
Bernard Freedman
James Judge
Robert Levey
Mary Louise Lyons
Dean McMahon
Dick O'Neill
Tiiu Parli
Stanton Prichard
Robert Stilson Jr.
Gregg Stuart
Milton Sussnow
Joan Yarborough
Ben Young

Directed by
Donn Harling

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Richard DeLong Adams		story and screenplay (as Richard Adams)
George Mitchell		story and screenplay

Produced by
Donn Harling	....	producer

Original Music by
Jaime Mendoza-Nava

Cinematography by
Vilis Lapenieks

Film Editing by
Ron Honthaner

Other crew
Eddie Gay	....	choreographer
Margaret Gay	....	choreographer

Production Companies

• Harling Productions

Distributors

• International Films (1962) (worldwide) (all media)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (video)

Runtime:

64 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Company:

Harling Productions

Vigorous B-pic overcomes low budget

This obscurity is one of the stream of grungy B-movies with boisterous jazz scores and snazzy credit sequences that followed in the wake of iconoclastic A-pix like "Anatomy of a Murder" and "The Man with the Golden Arm". The credits, with a twisting, falling cut-out silhouette, are a pretty cool Saul Bass imitation, and the main title appears abruptly at the very end of the picture.

The story concerns a hot-shot teen who stumbles onto a mob execution in progress. The gangsters conveniently set him up as the fall guy. He spends most of the picture on the run from both the cops and a brutish hit man called "the Indian" while he tries to unravel the plot against him.

This seems to be a one-off independent production and the low budget shows. The sets are minimal (several scenes look like they were filmed in someone's basement), the low-key lighting harsh, and the day-for-night photography and post-sync dubbing are too obvious. Nonetheless, the filmmakers are canny enough to make this a very watchable film. The throbbing score and quick cutting keep up the pace, the acting is edgy and believable, and there's a good sense of visual composition with noirish shadows. Best of all, the story throws something sensational at us every ten minutes (my favorite bit being a cat-fight that breaks out incongruously in the middle of a mob sit-down).

It doesn't have the resonance of "Blast of Silence" or "Angel's Flight", but taken on its own terms, it's much more successful than one would expect.