MovieChat Forums > Murder Is My Beat (1955) Discussion > Wow!! A virgin board! (Practically)

Wow!! A virgin board! (Practically)


Just watching this now on TCM--Did anyone else wonder if the guy that plays the bartender in the first 15 minutes survived the movie? Check that--I should have said "survived that scene?" He looked like he was literally in the final stages of some horrid disease.

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minor SPOILERS

when patrick goes bad, he breaks a whole lots of laws fast -- aiding a fugitive, breaking and entering into patsy's hotel room, steals her $5,000 -- that chick hadn't broken any laws yet. trespassing at the vase factory. after all that, he insists that she's going up if they hadn't found Dean within the seven days. then his boss rawley goes bad fast and says he'll give him 24 hours before he takes HIM in. what's the number for internal affairs??

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I totally agree! I, too, thought he looked terminal. It must have been bad (or no) makeup on the guy - or maybe he was supposed to look that way. In any case, the actor who played the bartender, Jay Adler, who was about 58 when this film was made, actually lived another 23 years! Ha!

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Hey! Nice to hear from someone else who has "braved" one of Ed Ulmer's "productions" (You got to admit they don't exactly flow over you like a pleasant, invigorating breeze...). Like you, I also looked up Jay Adler and his death particulars, really expecting to see that he had not outlived the airing of this movie by many months (years, at best). Of course, happily he did "recover" to live many more years, as you point out.

In his defense, I've decided that, in actuality he was just the most extreme manifestation of a pall of morbidity that seemed to hang over the whole cast and production. (More so than the usual Ulmer opus). So, that leaves me with one burning question...how long do we have to wait for the next Ulmer marathon?!?

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