Kill or Be Killed

Laurence Tierney is an engineer and architect in Brazil. He wants to be paid for installing an air-conditioning unit in a dive, but he's put off. Before you know it, he's been accused of a murder, shot at by the police, swum underwater for a couple of hundred yards with a bleeding wound, and been rescued by concert pianist Marissa O'Brien who's about to go find some peace in the jungle. He invites himself along, lest the police's aim improves with practice, and finds himself designing a new house for George Coulouris, who's talking with a German accent.

Odd people you meet on the Universal Studios back lot! Some of the street scenes were shot in Lisbon, but they don't add anything I noticed to this indie B movie, directed by Max Nosseck. It's a bog-standard B movie, barely indistinguishable from dozens of others of the period. Everyone seems to be competent, except possibly for the costume designer, whose name is understandably omitted from the credits.

This is probably most notable for the performance of Lawrence Tierney ("Warren") playing a goodie for a change. He has just installed an air-con system in a bar in Brazil and whilst chasing up his cash, he discovers the owner has been robbed and murdered and he has to escape into the jungle on an old river boat; with the help of concert pianist Marissa O'Brian ("Maria"), who is joining her husband (Rudolph Anders) and his dodgy business partner George Coulouris ("Sloma") in the remote Amazonian wilderness. Aside from a rather fun contribution from his young, mute, pal who gives him a timely warning about piranha fish, the plot degrades quickly into a plodding melodrama with some beautiful scenery but precious little else to rescue it from the doldrums with a rather underwhelming conclusion.

This film lost me when all the guys appeared for dinner in this mansion stuck in the middle of the jungle wearing white dinner jackets and ties while the woman of the house tinkered away on the grand piano. A bit out of place you might say. Also out of place was Lawrence Tierney in a role more suited to Cary Grant than the king of the tough guys. Lawrence excels as a gangster , why they tried to sell him off as a good guy defies logic!

This fast-paced and reasonably well-written noir is rare for a few reasons. One is simply that it's hard to find. Another is that it was shot on location in Brazil. Rarest perhaps is that quintessential noir bad boy Lawrence Tierney plays the hero for once.

Tierney, whose off-screen escapades rivaled those of the characters he played, had worn out his welcome in Hollywood by this time, but his performance here shows he could easily have become a leading man in action films. However, according to Wikipedia "In just seven years between 1944 and 1951, Tierney was arrested over a dozen times for brawling, frequently for drunkenness."

Here he plays an American engineer on assignment in a Brazilian river town. The familiar plot is one that was a favorite of Alfred Hitchcock among others: the innocent man, framed for a murder he didn't commit, tracking down the real killer, although in this case both the framing and tracking are accidental.

There's also the woman met along the way who believes him and helps conceal him, here a lackluster performance, perhaps intentional for a rather passive role, by little-known Marissa O'Brien.

At one point he joins an exploited plantation work gang, so there's even a bit of social commentary.

A must-see, if you can find it, for Tierney cultists.

I am not a fan of Lawrence Tierney's but because he did noirs, my favorite genre, I watch him.

Tierney plays Robert Warren, an engineer working in Brazil. In an attempt to collect money, he walks into a bar owner's office just as the man has been killed. The killer escapes. Thinking Warren did it, the police chase him.

He manages to board a ship going to the Amazon. A concert pianist on board Maria (Marissa O'Brien) helps him hide. Once off the ship, he gets a job at a plantation where the workers are being exploited. Their boss is Maria's husband, Gregory (Rudolph Anders).

Gregory has an associate, Victor (George Coulouris) who does all his dirty work. Victor recognizes Robert from the bar. Realizing he was at the scene of the murder, Robert becomes his assignment. In the meantime, Robert and Maria have fallen in love. So Victor and Gregory really aren't happy with him.

This is an okay film. Boy have times changed. Tierney states in this film that he's 32. He was, though you'd believe looking at him by today's standards that he's 55. In this film he plays a hero, which was unusual for him.

Some scenes shot in Lisbon.

People are always saying if Tierney hadn't been such a bad boy off the screen, he could have done this and that in films. Frankly I've never seen the attraction, though occasionally he says a line in something besides a monotone.