Disappointed

Being a fan of the genre I bought the noir dvd pack cold and was tickled to learn from the opening credits this was a Tony Mann movie with Raymond Burr high on the credit list.

Nobody, imo, plays the psycho thug as well as Burr, and he was entertaining in this. And some of the scenes - particularly the beat down of Brodie in the shack with the swinging light and the final shootout - were visually interesting.

Unfortunately Steve Brodie and Audrey Long weren't the most captivating of innocents, tho. Brodie was good at knocking out any thug Burr sent to watch over him, though. I mean, an elbow to the gut and the distracted thug is OUT. It happening once stretches things, but it happened twice in this movie. And the annoying little kid overhearing Long talking to Brodie when he tells her to get on the train and he'll catch up to her. At the end of the scene the camera turns to reveal the kid sitting on the stairs, letting us know he'd overheard the conversation. Why? Did I miss something? Usually you pan over to a secret eavesdropper because he's going to tell that secret to someone else (Burr, maybe, or the cops) but I don't remember the movie picking up on it after that. Like I said, I may have missed something.

What was most disappointing, since I have a relatively loose threshold of plausibility, is when Brodie comes in to turn himself into the cops and they let him go, telling him they can get him anytime they need to. He's moved two states away! And is Burr that hard to find that you need Brodie roaming loose to draw him out?