SHOOT TO KILL (1947)

Produced and Directed by William Berke with a screenplay by Edwin Westrate, this routine sixty-four-minute, fast-paced crime noir does have an ending that is anything but routine. The alternate title, “Police Reporter,” best defines the film, however. It was produced for Robert L. Lippert Productions and distributed by Screen Guild Productions. The whiplashing script—thank the numerous flashbacks—begins at the end of the movie with a cliff-side car crash that sends a female to the hospital. The myriad of flashbacks can make it a complicated affair with the viewer feeling they may have “parachuted in.” Character development is nearly nonexistent for these unknown actors. Past the halfway point the action finally kicks in but the contrived twist at the end is borderline science fiction.

A common practice of the era to condense a film was to have select scenes replaced by the next sequence sliding across the screen or superimposed over another. An example is the whirlwind courtroom scene—dialogue edited down to essentials—to simply introduce local gangster, Robert Kent, accused of a murder he did not commit. The assistant district attorney (ADA) railroaded him and Kent (below left) vows revenge even if it takes the full twenty-year sentence. One can imagine a number of things that could change in that time span. Besides, a twenty-year “flash-forward” would not be tolerated by the audience.

Russell Wade, in his next to last film, plays a crack newspaper reporter also trying to figure out what the characters are doing in this movie. Without the flashbacks, he might never find his purpose in the film. The script makes it a point to mention he has the ability to read—newspapers—upside down to subtly gain information. He is very polite with a laid-back, yet upbeat personality with the pulse of the city in his hip pocket. The script fails to mention his flat dialogue delivery. Still in flashback mode outside the office of that ADA, Edmund MacDonald, Wade bumps into Luan Walters for their initial encounter. They become a fixture at many popular nightspots as their relationship blossoms. I expected a marriage proposal from Wade at any second. With his introduction to MacDonald—someone Wade has no pulse on—Walters becomes his secretary, just as Wade predicted. What he could not predict was MacDonald replacing him at said nightspots.

The mustachioed MacDonald—a face combining a young Orson Welles and Robert Preston—is tied in with mobster, Nestor Paiva (above right in hat), who runs his career. Paiva senses Walters is not trustworthy and demands he, now in what is called a quandary, fire her. He attempts to write a letter dismissing her services but has an epiphany instead. Walters is asked to transcribe a verbal message which—even in shorthand—becomes his clever marriage proposal. A wife cannot testify against her husband. She surmises his underhanded charade and we begin to sense she is a driving force to be reckoned with. At this point, one realizes top-billed Wade has disappeared from the film, and after only six months in the slammer, Kent escapes prison.

About the forty-minute point, the film offers its first real action. Wade returns to the screen to track Kent and convince him that the confessions of two witnesses can clear him of the murder conviction. Kent is not convinced. While exiting a darkened stairway, an intense fistfight breaks out between the two—stuntmen—with Kent escaping. It is quite an impressive action sequence for any era, sped up for your enjoyment. Another flashback—make that two—takes the viewer back to the hospital where Walters, still suffering from "multi-flashback syndrome," wraps up her revealing story to Wade. The most memorable segment—the science fiction part—is the double-crossing twist upon twist ending. The “clergyman” who performed the MacDonald-Walters “wedding ceremony” sends believability off the charts when he reappears. We are finally back to the beginning but the movie has reached the end of its reel of celluloid.

Note: One will always know when something dramatic is about to happen as the music score by Darrell Calker crescendos to a fever pitch. An amusing example is after the ADA's office is bugged by a very nervous janitor under the fist of Pavia. A lot of film frames were eaten up for the janitor's scenes, though his screen presence is short-lived by an involuntary free-fall down an elevator shaft. MacDonald notices a wire under his office bookshelf. What the?! He starts pulling on it uprooting one floor rug after the other, before moving into the adjoining room, moving file cabinets, chairs and generally destroying the office before moving into a closet as the music gets louder and the tempo increases.