Why aren't more people talking about this film?
It's so ahead of it's time. Arthur Franz does a great job as the disturbed lead character.
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It is uncomfortably disturbing to audiences because it is pretty much a sypathetic protrayal of a killer and his state of mind, but the film has a strong social conscious, unlike most films about killers these days, which seem to focus on attracting viewers more with the killer's sheer delight in evil, gore and violence rather than psychological disturbance and suffering states of mind.
Laura from www.film-noir-alley.com
This film was made in 1952 and I bet a lot of people didn't even bother to see it. I don't believe people took things seriously in those days. I actually saw this in 1952 when I was 14 years old and only remembered the part when he put his hand on the hot plate and also that Arthur Franz was good looking! I am watching it today on TCM and noticing how many times he flinched when a woman made a harsh remark and when the mother hit the kid in the face. Obviously, his mother did a real job on him when he was a kid. Unfortunately lots of things that happen to us as kids make up our personalities. I'm also watching the police psychiatrist Gerald Mohr one of my favorite voices from the golden age of radio, The Adventures of Phillip Marlow.
shareInterestingly, I saw this also in 1952 when I was fourteen and was greatly affected by it. I remember having sympathy for the main character and feeling ashamed that I did. I haven't seen it since. I was just watching ''Member of the Wedding'' and saw Arthur Franz in it and remembered how affected I was by him in ''The Sniper.'' I hope to catch it again when it comes back to TCM.
shareIt was certainly ahead of its time. As far as I can tell, it was the first Hollywood film to try to deal seriously with a serial killer on a clinical level, regarding him not as an embodiment of abstract evil but as a problem to be examined and understood. What I admire most about it is its comparative restraint. Unlike some other films of its kind and era, it refrains from overexplicit analysis of the killer. There are no flashbacks or Psycho-style postmortems to smother Eddie's disturbing deeds in explanations. Granted, it searches a little too hard for conventional connections, but it's to Dmytryk's credit that it doesn't fill in all the blanks.