Narration + Gun silencer


I want to thank IMDB for providing the name of the uncredited narrator, Lionel Stander. He was Max on Hart to Hart and it bugged me that I couldn't put a name on a familiar voice. I was wrongly guessing William Demerest. The narrator had as many lines as anyone else in the film, but nowhere was his name included in the film credits.

Secondly, the hitman taped a silencer to the revolver. It is my understanding that a revolver cannot be silenced. You can only silence a hand gun with a magazine. But, I could be wrong. I really don't know what to be believe.

It just bothers me when Hollywood puts out bad information. Such as, they still put forth that nonsence about keeping a person on the phone for 3-5 minutes so they trace the call. Anyone, with caller ID knows that this is not true and hasn't been true for decades. Let's assume that we are in the last century and cell phones are not involved.

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I was pretty sure that was Lionel Stander, but couldn't prove it. The reason he's not in the credits is probably due to the fact that Stander got blacklisted in the late 50's when his name came up in the McCarthy hearings. So he got paid for the voice over but didn't get his name in the credits

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You're right. I've read somewhere that Lionel Stander was offered $5,000 with a credit, or $2,500 without, and he preferred to keep his head down and chose the latter. Consider that the whole film only cost around $60,000.

It's just about my favourite film, I watch it every Xmas. Larry Tucker was as disgusting as ever (I mean that as a compliment, he was also good in Shock Corridor). We really should allow Allen Baron a bit of latitude in the precise details of guns (this isn't a Hollywood film, far from it) and take the film as what it is - a brilliant late noir with the best voice-over ever.

Lionel was heart-wrenchingly doomed again in Polanski's Cul de Sac, and was in Pulp with Michael Caine, though I haven't seen that in years.

Another loss to us because of the McCarthy HUAC nonsense that took so much away from so many people.

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I just watched the DVD of this film [with extra material] and the director explains that Lionel was willing to allow them to use his name in the credits for $1000, but the filmmakers decided against that for purely financial reasons and just paid him $500 for an uncredited narration.

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According to the one hour (Criterion Collection) feature on the DVD, Sander was offered a $500 fee for the uncredited narration or $1,000 credited. He chose the former for (HUAC) reasons stated above.

Watta ya lookn here for?

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