44 reviews
- planktonrules
- Sep 26, 2009
- Permalink
I cannot say that this is one of the better films noir, but it's a good example of the way this kind of film was drifting in the early fifties: away from the studios; toward independent production; more cars, fewer subways; a vaguely documentary air, ala Jack Webb, rather than the more elegant stylization we associate with the forties; more outdoor scenes, fewer cramped rooms; and overall a movement away from the Gothic and toward a more contemporary, which is to say paranoid mood. Having said this, it ain't a bad picture. Edmond O'Brien (who also had a hand behind the camera) plays a basically decent and fair cop who gives in to temptation and steals some money from a bad guy. He pays dearly for his transgression. O'Brien is edgier and tougher than usual; the rest of the cast is okay. This is an extremely watchable film. It involves you more than most police thrillers. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
- melvelvit-1
- Jun 24, 2007
- Permalink
Edmond O'Brien has a "Shield for Murder" in this 1954 noir also starring Marla English, John Agar, and Carolyn Jones. O'Brien plays a bad cop - one review here said he was a good cop who gave into temptation. Not so. He was a bad cop, who had been suspected of trouble in the past but never caught.
In the beginning of the film, Barney (O'Brien), a detective, kills a bookie and steals the $25,000 that the victim is carrying. He claims that he killed in self defense, and his story is accepted. Then the fact that the bookie was carrying money, now missing, emerges. What Barney doesn't know at first is that there is a witness, a deaf and dumb man, who saw the whole thing.
Barney is a person of great interest to the bookie's boss, and also, a young man he helped bring up in the force (John Agar), his staunchist defender against criticism, is anxious to clear him. Barney, meanwhile, wants to purchase a dream house for him and his girlfriend (English) and get married. When he finds out about the witness, he needs to do some fast work.
O'Brien gives a very hard-edged performance. His character is completely unlikable. The very pretty Marla English unfortunately was unable to act. In one scene, however, Barney goes into a bar and meets a platinum blonde, who turns out to be actress Carolyn Jones, normally known for her stylish short black haircut.
Pretty brutal for the '50s. O'Brien elevates the material. Interesting noir, co-directed by Howard Koch and O'Brien.
In the beginning of the film, Barney (O'Brien), a detective, kills a bookie and steals the $25,000 that the victim is carrying. He claims that he killed in self defense, and his story is accepted. Then the fact that the bookie was carrying money, now missing, emerges. What Barney doesn't know at first is that there is a witness, a deaf and dumb man, who saw the whole thing.
Barney is a person of great interest to the bookie's boss, and also, a young man he helped bring up in the force (John Agar), his staunchist defender against criticism, is anxious to clear him. Barney, meanwhile, wants to purchase a dream house for him and his girlfriend (English) and get married. When he finds out about the witness, he needs to do some fast work.
O'Brien gives a very hard-edged performance. His character is completely unlikable. The very pretty Marla English unfortunately was unable to act. In one scene, however, Barney goes into a bar and meets a platinum blonde, who turns out to be actress Carolyn Jones, normally known for her stylish short black haircut.
Pretty brutal for the '50s. O'Brien elevates the material. Interesting noir, co-directed by Howard Koch and O'Brien.
Veteran police Lieutenant Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien) murders a bookie and steals $25k from him. A deaf mute neighbor secretly witnesses the event. Nolan stages the crime scene and claims that it was an accident. His Captain reluctantly covers for him and his friend Sergeant Mark Brewster (John Agar) accepts his explanation despite suspicion from the missing money. He plans to use the money to get his girlfriend Patty Winters out of being a sleazy cigarette girl.
This is solid crime noir. It follows the villain and his desperate need for money. It's a descend into hell for a cop turning into a criminal. I like that this is Nolan's story more than Brewster. It would have been interesting to do a full character study on him. This is solid and intriguing.
This is solid crime noir. It follows the villain and his desperate need for money. It's a descend into hell for a cop turning into a criminal. I like that this is Nolan's story more than Brewster. It would have been interesting to do a full character study on him. This is solid and intriguing.
- SnoopyStyle
- Nov 8, 2021
- Permalink
There are some similarities here with a great B-level film made close to 40 years later "Miami Blues". Both focus on desperate, lawless men with soft spots for a pretty, child-like woman, who abuse the power of a police badge in a violent, supremely ill-advised attempt to settle into a comfortable, anonymous existence in the "paradise" of America's suburbs. And as with "Blues", the last 30 minutes are as frantic and exciting and darkly comic as anything you will see.
The film isn't perfect. There are weak links in the cast: Marla English is unremarkable as the trusting girlfriend, Herb Butterfield doesn't register as a pesky reporter (and John Agar's nagging conscience), and I found snarling Emile Meyer to be a disproportionately cynical police captain consumed with disgust for mankind. But Edmond O'Brien is suitably sweaty and hard-boiled as the corrupt cop (though damn, he is one puffy and bloated leading man), Agar is fine as his conflicted protegee (just before Agar moved into his mostly bad sci-fi phase) and Carolyn Jones spices things up big-time as a spaghetti loving floozy.
Starts off looking sort of cheap and routine but it's one of those films that sneaks up and surprises you. Not bad at all. A little like Richard Gere's "Internal Affairs" too, come to think of it.
The film isn't perfect. There are weak links in the cast: Marla English is unremarkable as the trusting girlfriend, Herb Butterfield doesn't register as a pesky reporter (and John Agar's nagging conscience), and I found snarling Emile Meyer to be a disproportionately cynical police captain consumed with disgust for mankind. But Edmond O'Brien is suitably sweaty and hard-boiled as the corrupt cop (though damn, he is one puffy and bloated leading man), Agar is fine as his conflicted protegee (just before Agar moved into his mostly bad sci-fi phase) and Carolyn Jones spices things up big-time as a spaghetti loving floozy.
Starts off looking sort of cheap and routine but it's one of those films that sneaks up and surprises you. Not bad at all. A little like Richard Gere's "Internal Affairs" too, come to think of it.
Unfortunately roles for talented middle-aged actors like Edmond O'Brien and Ida Lupino were drying-up in the mid-1950's, with TV replacing the old black-and-white B-movie. Lupino carried on with a successful career behind the camera, and it appears O'Brien was exploring that option too, by co-directing this independent production. The results however are pretty uneven. O'Brien gets to sweat his usual bucket-load, playing a cop corrupted by the allure of a tract house in burgeoning suburbia. (Now there's a departure!-- in fact, one of the curious attractions is a tour through the well-appointed tract home of the period, something that glitzy Hollywood never had much time for.) There's also some well-staged scenes-- the shoot-out around the public pool is both unusual and well-executed, while the beating in the bar reaches a jarringly brutal pitch that registers on the stricken faces of the patrons and O'Brien's contorted brow.
However, the pacing fails to generate the excitement or intensity a thriller like this needs. Plus the performance level really drops off with English and Agar. Their conversation around the pool, in fact, amounts to a seminar in bad acting. Too bad, O'Brien didn't have the budget to surround himself with a calibre of actors equal to his own. In passing-- the guy playing the deaf-mute really jarred me. He looks so unlike the usual bit-player and is so well cast that the scene in his room with O'Brien comes across as more than just a little poignant. Also, more than just a hint of kink emerges with Carolyn Jones' well-played barfly nympho. She's clearly on her way up the casting ladder. Anyway, there's probably enough compensation here to make up for Agar and English and the listless scenes in the station house, particularly for those curiosity seekers wondering about Better Homes and Gardens 1950's style.
However, the pacing fails to generate the excitement or intensity a thriller like this needs. Plus the performance level really drops off with English and Agar. Their conversation around the pool, in fact, amounts to a seminar in bad acting. Too bad, O'Brien didn't have the budget to surround himself with a calibre of actors equal to his own. In passing-- the guy playing the deaf-mute really jarred me. He looks so unlike the usual bit-player and is so well cast that the scene in his room with O'Brien comes across as more than just a little poignant. Also, more than just a hint of kink emerges with Carolyn Jones' well-played barfly nympho. She's clearly on her way up the casting ladder. Anyway, there's probably enough compensation here to make up for Agar and English and the listless scenes in the station house, particularly for those curiosity seekers wondering about Better Homes and Gardens 1950's style.
- dougdoepke
- Jul 15, 2007
- Permalink
- evanston_dad
- May 9, 2017
- Permalink
In Shield For Murder Edmond O'Brien is tired of being a straight arrow cop. One night he murders a numbers runner and steals %25,000.00 from him. Of course his official version is that he was resisting arrest, but the bookmaker played by Hugh Sanders knows he's out all that money and he'll get it back one way or another.
O'Brien is perfectly cast as the aging detective sick and tired of seeing crooks grow rich. His problem is that he's grown such contempt for the human race he thinks that he's the smartest guy out there. Never credits the crooks or the cops with an ounce of intelligence. That is his downfall.
John Agar is his protégé and still a straight arrow. The undercurrent running through the film is that while Agar is trying to catch O'Brien will he fall victim to the same cynicism?
Some other noteworthy performances in Shield For Murder are from Marla English as O'Brien's troubled girlfriend, Carolyn Jones as a bar girl he has a small fling with, Claude Akins as one of Sanders's hoods and Emile Meyer as the precinct captain.
But Edmond O'Brien is something to see here. In a really crackerjack noir thriller.
O'Brien is perfectly cast as the aging detective sick and tired of seeing crooks grow rich. His problem is that he's grown such contempt for the human race he thinks that he's the smartest guy out there. Never credits the crooks or the cops with an ounce of intelligence. That is his downfall.
John Agar is his protégé and still a straight arrow. The undercurrent running through the film is that while Agar is trying to catch O'Brien will he fall victim to the same cynicism?
Some other noteworthy performances in Shield For Murder are from Marla English as O'Brien's troubled girlfriend, Carolyn Jones as a bar girl he has a small fling with, Claude Akins as one of Sanders's hoods and Emile Meyer as the precinct captain.
But Edmond O'Brien is something to see here. In a really crackerjack noir thriller.
- bkoganbing
- Jul 29, 2017
- Permalink
In Shield for Murder (a movie he co-directed with Howard Koch), Edmond O'Brien plays a Los Angeles cop `gone sour.' Bloated and sweaty, he's a sneak preview of another bad apple Orson Welles in Touch of Evil. In a pre-title sequence, he guns down a drug runner in cold blood, relieves the corpse of an envelope crammed with $25-thou, then yells `Stop or I'll shoot' for the benefit of eavesdroppers before firing twice into the air. When his partner (John Agar) arrives, there's only a few hundred dollars left on the body, and it looks like a justifiable police action though O'Brien's shock tactics have already drawn the unwelcome attention of his new captain (Emile Meyer).
O'Brien wants the money to buy into the American Dream to put a down-payment on a tract house, furnished (oddly enough) right down to the table settings. It's a bungalow to share with his girl, Marla English, as well as a handy place to bury his cash in its yard. But a couple of things go wrong. First off, a local crime boss wants back the loot O'Brien ripped off and dispatches a couple of goons to retrieve it. Then, though there were no eye-witnesses to the murder, there was in fact an eavesdropper an old blind man whose acute hearing picked up a sequence of shots that don't add up to the official story. When this good citizen decides to tell the police what he heard, O'Brien decides to pay him a nocturnal visit....
Based on a novel by William McGivern (who also wrote the books from which The Big Heat, Rogue Cop and Odds Against Tomorrow were drawn), Shield For Murder embodies some of the shifts in tone and emphasis the noir cycle was showing as it wound down. Its emphasis is less on individuals caught up in circumstance than on widespread public corruption; its tone is less suggestive than ostentatiously violent. The movie ratchets up to a couple of brutal set-pieces.
In one, O'Brien, knocking back doubles at the bar in a spaghetti cellar, is picked up by a floozie (Carolyn Jones, in what looks like Barbara Stanwyck's wig from Double Indemnity). `You know what's the matter with mirrors in bars?' she asks him. `Men always make hard faces in them.' While she eats, he continues to drink. When the goons track him down there, O'Brien savagely pistol-whips one of them (Claude Akins) to the horror of the other patrons who had come to devour their pasta in peace. Later, there's an attempted pay-off (and a double-cross) in a public locker-room and swimming-pool that ends in carnage. It's easy to dismiss Shield For Murder it has a seedy B-picture look and a literalness that typified most of the crime films of the Eisenhower administration. But it's grimly effective almost explosive.
O'Brien wants the money to buy into the American Dream to put a down-payment on a tract house, furnished (oddly enough) right down to the table settings. It's a bungalow to share with his girl, Marla English, as well as a handy place to bury his cash in its yard. But a couple of things go wrong. First off, a local crime boss wants back the loot O'Brien ripped off and dispatches a couple of goons to retrieve it. Then, though there were no eye-witnesses to the murder, there was in fact an eavesdropper an old blind man whose acute hearing picked up a sequence of shots that don't add up to the official story. When this good citizen decides to tell the police what he heard, O'Brien decides to pay him a nocturnal visit....
Based on a novel by William McGivern (who also wrote the books from which The Big Heat, Rogue Cop and Odds Against Tomorrow were drawn), Shield For Murder embodies some of the shifts in tone and emphasis the noir cycle was showing as it wound down. Its emphasis is less on individuals caught up in circumstance than on widespread public corruption; its tone is less suggestive than ostentatiously violent. The movie ratchets up to a couple of brutal set-pieces.
In one, O'Brien, knocking back doubles at the bar in a spaghetti cellar, is picked up by a floozie (Carolyn Jones, in what looks like Barbara Stanwyck's wig from Double Indemnity). `You know what's the matter with mirrors in bars?' she asks him. `Men always make hard faces in them.' While she eats, he continues to drink. When the goons track him down there, O'Brien savagely pistol-whips one of them (Claude Akins) to the horror of the other patrons who had come to devour their pasta in peace. Later, there's an attempted pay-off (and a double-cross) in a public locker-room and swimming-pool that ends in carnage. It's easy to dismiss Shield For Murder it has a seedy B-picture look and a literalness that typified most of the crime films of the Eisenhower administration. But it's grimly effective almost explosive.
- mark.waltz
- Apr 8, 2018
- Permalink
Middle-aged "Detective Barney Nolan" (Edmond O'Brien) is a bad cop out to make a score for his retirement fund. He finds it by murdering a "bagman" bookie of a local mobster who was carrying $25,000 in mob-money. Nolan stages the scene to make it look like an arrest that deteriorated into an attempted escape, leaves some chump-change on the corpse, and pockets the $25k. Initially, it looks like Nolan will get away with his callous scheme and eventually retire to suburban track-house comfort with his much younger girlfriend, "Patty" (Marla English).
However, he has three things going against him. First, he already has too many shootings "in the line of duty" for this one to be completely shrugged-off by his captain (Emile Meyer), the local crime beat reporter (Herbert Butterfield),and his fellow detectives. Secondly, the mob boss, "Packy Reed" (Hugh Sanders), wants his $25k and sends two goons (one of them a young Claude Akins)after Nolan to get it back. And, finally, there was a witness to the murder. Still, Nolan has his partner, "Sgt. Mark Brewster" (John Agar), who is willing to give his friend every benefit of the doubt, but as the evidence of Nolan's guilt mounts even Sgt. Brewster starts to wonder.
The best thing about "Shield for Murder" is the character of Barney Nolan. He's a violent brute. The beast underneath the badge is never far from the surface. He murders for money. He roughs-up his girlfriend's boss for no reason other than his outrage at her skimpy cigarette girl costume. He brutally pistol-whips two men in front of a bar full of shocked and horrified patrons. Yet, we see glimpses of a man who was not always a monster- his sweetness towards his girlfriend and a scene where he lets a young shoplifter off the hook which was apparently a repeat of something he done in the past to good effect.
Edmond O'Brien probably aged more quickly and badly than any leading man actor of his era. In 1939's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" he was thin, had a mop of wavy hair, a pencil mustache, and the chiseled features of a handsome Hollywood matinée idol. Yet, within fifteen years, he was badly overweight, puffy-looking, and sweaty. It looks like he didn't give a hoot about his physical appearance which is unusual for an actor. In "Shield for Murder," though, O'Brien's disheveled appearance actually fits his character very well.
However, his scenes with 19 yr old budding starlet Marla English are a bit of a stretch. While one can definitely see what an overweight, middle-aged man would like about Ms. English's "Patty"- she looks like a combination of young Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins- we have no idea what she sees in him. Ms. English is OK in the role, but her character could have been played by almost any young actress. It appears Ms. English was chosen by the producers just so they could briefly show-off her physical assets in that cigarette girl costume.
However, he has three things going against him. First, he already has too many shootings "in the line of duty" for this one to be completely shrugged-off by his captain (Emile Meyer), the local crime beat reporter (Herbert Butterfield),and his fellow detectives. Secondly, the mob boss, "Packy Reed" (Hugh Sanders), wants his $25k and sends two goons (one of them a young Claude Akins)after Nolan to get it back. And, finally, there was a witness to the murder. Still, Nolan has his partner, "Sgt. Mark Brewster" (John Agar), who is willing to give his friend every benefit of the doubt, but as the evidence of Nolan's guilt mounts even Sgt. Brewster starts to wonder.
The best thing about "Shield for Murder" is the character of Barney Nolan. He's a violent brute. The beast underneath the badge is never far from the surface. He murders for money. He roughs-up his girlfriend's boss for no reason other than his outrage at her skimpy cigarette girl costume. He brutally pistol-whips two men in front of a bar full of shocked and horrified patrons. Yet, we see glimpses of a man who was not always a monster- his sweetness towards his girlfriend and a scene where he lets a young shoplifter off the hook which was apparently a repeat of something he done in the past to good effect.
Edmond O'Brien probably aged more quickly and badly than any leading man actor of his era. In 1939's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" he was thin, had a mop of wavy hair, a pencil mustache, and the chiseled features of a handsome Hollywood matinée idol. Yet, within fifteen years, he was badly overweight, puffy-looking, and sweaty. It looks like he didn't give a hoot about his physical appearance which is unusual for an actor. In "Shield for Murder," though, O'Brien's disheveled appearance actually fits his character very well.
However, his scenes with 19 yr old budding starlet Marla English are a bit of a stretch. While one can definitely see what an overweight, middle-aged man would like about Ms. English's "Patty"- she looks like a combination of young Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins- we have no idea what she sees in him. Ms. English is OK in the role, but her character could have been played by almost any young actress. It appears Ms. English was chosen by the producers just so they could briefly show-off her physical assets in that cigarette girl costume.
- dukeakasmudge
- Jun 3, 2017
- Permalink
One of those B movies of the fifties, while not great, that is always enjoyable. O'Brien plays detective who is sick of struggling and wants some big dough quick and easy. He murders a stoolie who has $25,000 on him. His longtime partner and friend, Agar, doesn't want to believe his friend could commit such a heinous crime, but all evidence points in that direction. Agar is good as frustrated detective. The funniest scene in the film is Akins pursuing O'Brien through school corridors with his head all bandaged up from blows O'Brien inflicted earlier. Marla English is almost Elizabeth Taylorian in her looks as girlfriend of O'Brien, although I'm not sure what his appeal is.
This noir from the mid-50's is very watchable, even though it bears more resemblance to a TV series than a film. Some scenes could have been filmed by the unit that shot Dragnet for example. O'Brien is good in his sweaty beefy way that you remember from D.O.A., John Agar is stolid, Marla English capable but no more. The only standout is Carolyn Jones as Girl in Bar, and why her character has no name I don't know. She reminds me of Ann-Margret in Carnal Knowledge, that level of sad understanding.
And maybe all noir is Shakespearean. This one certainly is.
Edmond O'Brien plays the "Macbeth", a rotten detective named Barney, but he isn't the politically correct deputy of Mayberry by a long shot.
And it's okay to kid about it, because there is a fairly extensive dark comic relief scene in this film, where he is approached by a flirty blond girl, more cute than naturally attractive, but very charming, in a scene that culminates in a great directorial triumph of mixing violence (in the form of a beating) with dark comedy (as a patron stands in horror, yet continuing to gulp down his spaghetti).
This is a perfect noir. The crooked detective begins with murdering a man, and using his "shield" to justify his actions. Agar is well cast as the "good cop" detective. English is stunning as the woman in the triangle about to form.
We soon learn it isn't the first offense by the bad detective. The other characters play a big part in this film, as great films are usually the result of believable characters up and down the line up. These are all .300 hitters, down to the pitcher. No intentional walks to this group.
And that does penalize it in IMDb voting, since most multiple accounts are from the bubble boys who won't appreciate the three dimensional villain we're given. IMDb's beavis and butthead type voters traditionally praise the "my sadist can outsadist your sadist" movies. This won't appeal to them, as O'Brien gives an acting clinic (helped by the rest of the cast, of course).
The depth of O'Brien's acting could well be shown to classes, when one compares this to his technique in D.O.A.. For instance, there is a scene in this film where he recoils in horror upon being discovered, similar to the scene in D.O.A. where he recoils upon being diagnosed with luminous poisoning. Yet he clearly shows different expressions and emotions for recoiling from guilt and recoiling from persecution.
This film flows well, full of pace, always with some action, comedy, or interesting tid bits to keep even the most easily bored into it. This film has many positives, and no negatives.
Edmond O'Brien plays the "Macbeth", a rotten detective named Barney, but he isn't the politically correct deputy of Mayberry by a long shot.
And it's okay to kid about it, because there is a fairly extensive dark comic relief scene in this film, where he is approached by a flirty blond girl, more cute than naturally attractive, but very charming, in a scene that culminates in a great directorial triumph of mixing violence (in the form of a beating) with dark comedy (as a patron stands in horror, yet continuing to gulp down his spaghetti).
This is a perfect noir. The crooked detective begins with murdering a man, and using his "shield" to justify his actions. Agar is well cast as the "good cop" detective. English is stunning as the woman in the triangle about to form.
We soon learn it isn't the first offense by the bad detective. The other characters play a big part in this film, as great films are usually the result of believable characters up and down the line up. These are all .300 hitters, down to the pitcher. No intentional walks to this group.
And that does penalize it in IMDb voting, since most multiple accounts are from the bubble boys who won't appreciate the three dimensional villain we're given. IMDb's beavis and butthead type voters traditionally praise the "my sadist can outsadist your sadist" movies. This won't appeal to them, as O'Brien gives an acting clinic (helped by the rest of the cast, of course).
The depth of O'Brien's acting could well be shown to classes, when one compares this to his technique in D.O.A.. For instance, there is a scene in this film where he recoils in horror upon being discovered, similar to the scene in D.O.A. where he recoils upon being diagnosed with luminous poisoning. Yet he clearly shows different expressions and emotions for recoiling from guilt and recoiling from persecution.
This film flows well, full of pace, always with some action, comedy, or interesting tid bits to keep even the most easily bored into it. This film has many positives, and no negatives.
- richardchatten
- Jun 21, 2017
- Permalink
By the time this SHIELD FOR MURDER hit theaters, Edmond O'Brien had put on a few pounds, resembling Tyrone Power had he eaten Tyrone Power and with the lean, strict, tough years behind he was perfect as a character he'd have, a few years prior, spent an entire movie trying to bust...
Starting out with a MURDER where only one hidden witness knows the truth, O'Brien's crooked cop Barney might not have stooped this low... intentionally killing a lowlife criminal who happens to have a ton of cash from the bigwig mobster he ripped off... unless he felt he was above the law since he was the law, and Detective Barney Nolan not only has a bad temper but a reputation that proceeds him...
The believers are a young cop he mentored since youth, played by TARANTULA star John Agar as well as the token ingenue, Marla English (THREE BAD SISTERS) as Patty Winters, a nice looking dame he can't trust to work in public yet he dreams of stowing her cozily into a tract house in the budding suburbs with the help of his victim, now donning empty pockets in the morgue and, with the exception of Emile Meyer's quick lecture, and a newspaper reporter morally hounding his cop friend, Barney, who got away with it.
SHIELD FOR MURDER is intense and not just when it's supposed to be. Moments where the stakes are raised and the suspense antes up as tables turn into the third act are taut but not as effective as when our anti anti-hero's completely in the clear.
O'Brien's expressions alone, eyes either narrowed or bulging, even while romancing "other girl" Carolyn Jones, makes him far from the usual ambiguous Noir centerpiece and yet a residual of sympathy remains in his hopeless desire in keeping a crime covered up, and the fact he killed a bad guy in the first place...
What does fit the particular genre are the low budget sets, from the police headquarters desks that seemed dragged in for a day's shoot, a boom microphone shadow that puts all visible booms to shame and covering up the flaws is terrific acting albeit too backed by a loud dramatic soundtrack...
In one scene he goes through a guilt-driven transformation that'd be more effective for O'Brien without the musical bombs bursting behind him. But flaws aside, this is a sparse and effective one-man show about a multi-flawed cop that, like even Film Noir protagonists, simply wants a short cut for the good life i.e. the impossible American Dream.
Starting out with a MURDER where only one hidden witness knows the truth, O'Brien's crooked cop Barney might not have stooped this low... intentionally killing a lowlife criminal who happens to have a ton of cash from the bigwig mobster he ripped off... unless he felt he was above the law since he was the law, and Detective Barney Nolan not only has a bad temper but a reputation that proceeds him...
The believers are a young cop he mentored since youth, played by TARANTULA star John Agar as well as the token ingenue, Marla English (THREE BAD SISTERS) as Patty Winters, a nice looking dame he can't trust to work in public yet he dreams of stowing her cozily into a tract house in the budding suburbs with the help of his victim, now donning empty pockets in the morgue and, with the exception of Emile Meyer's quick lecture, and a newspaper reporter morally hounding his cop friend, Barney, who got away with it.
SHIELD FOR MURDER is intense and not just when it's supposed to be. Moments where the stakes are raised and the suspense antes up as tables turn into the third act are taut but not as effective as when our anti anti-hero's completely in the clear.
O'Brien's expressions alone, eyes either narrowed or bulging, even while romancing "other girl" Carolyn Jones, makes him far from the usual ambiguous Noir centerpiece and yet a residual of sympathy remains in his hopeless desire in keeping a crime covered up, and the fact he killed a bad guy in the first place...
What does fit the particular genre are the low budget sets, from the police headquarters desks that seemed dragged in for a day's shoot, a boom microphone shadow that puts all visible booms to shame and covering up the flaws is terrific acting albeit too backed by a loud dramatic soundtrack...
In one scene he goes through a guilt-driven transformation that'd be more effective for O'Brien without the musical bombs bursting behind him. But flaws aside, this is a sparse and effective one-man show about a multi-flawed cop that, like even Film Noir protagonists, simply wants a short cut for the good life i.e. the impossible American Dream.
- TheFearmakers
- Apr 1, 2019
- Permalink
The poor police detectives that populated the film noirs of the early 1950s. Their suits were rumpled and they lived on whatever pittance the departments paid them. Edmond O'Brien pretty much owns the stereotype in Shield For Murder, which he also co-directed, a film that takes "hard-hitting" to new heights of violence, most notably in a scene where he pistol-whips the holy crap out Claude Aikens, who plays an enforcer for the local underground crime boss. O'Brien's character had either gradually gotten fed up with his lousy pay or was always on the take, but either way, his murder of a numbers runner and "liberation" of the $25,000 he was carrying, opens this film onto a unique level of tawdry bleakness only made possible by the lesser studios, like the one from which this highly recommended film emerged. Ostensibly, what drives O'Brien's character is a desire to provide the kind of life his girlfriend (Marla English) deserves, a nicely appointed and totally furnished tract house in the suburbs. John Agar, O'Brien's honest partner on the detective division, seems to gradually move in on Marla, coinciding with O'Brien's descent into violent desperation, capped off by a few drinks in a spaghetti bar where he meets incredible looking Carolyn Jones. Everything builds up, well-paced to the end.
- RanchoTuVu
- Dec 2, 2015
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Predictable cops and robbers stuff, made interesting because it is one of only two pictures directed by O'Brian. A good supporting cast-Agar, English, Akins, and Jones help prop up the old story of good cop gone bad. Full credits roll at the end, now the rule, but unusual in the 50s.
As a big Edmond O"Brien fan, I am doubly disappointed in this movie in that he co-directed it besides starring in it. There are plenty of low-budget noirs that are good entertainment, but this was a real misfire. In the early going, the shadow of a boom mike shows up as big as a full moon, and that's typical of the technical mistakes or bad choices. Another bad choice - the beating of the two PI's sent by the gangster was shot with a low angle so that you only see O'Brien swinging his gun with no view of the victims, nor any idea how he managed to beat both of them to smithereens without having a glove laid on him. As a matter of fact, this movie is so filled with low angles, it nearly discredits the practice in general. The main character's desperation, white-hot temper, impulsiveness and stupidity are out-of-step with the idea of any kind of competent detective. There was no build-up or character arc. He's just as ridiculous at the beginning as he is at the end. His girlfriend is too far out of his league to be believed. The captain (Emile Meyer) is a corny cliché. The story wasn't well stitched together, so that situations arose without any set-up, such as the guys who were hiding him out for $500/day. I guess that part was left on the cutting room floor, which is preferable to the alternative - that it was left of the script.
- peterwcohen-300-947200
- Jul 20, 2021
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