User reviews

Really more of a murder mystery than a noir, with a Perry Mason-like final courtroom scene. One of those films where the detective keeps getting information a bit too easily.

It's about a public defender representing a murder suspect apprehended after fleeing a courtroom while on trial 12 years earlier. What gives it more interest than usual is its showing the changes in the suspects' live from 1938 to 1950 caused by the war, their involvement with the murder, and life in general.

Chief virtues: the fast pace without needless explanation, crisp dialog, and minor characters with their own personality, even if only onscreen briefly.

Not a classic but hold yours interest and provides some food for thought. Perhaps a "B" picture but with quality production values you'd expect from RKO.

Hunt the Man Down is directed by George Archainbaud and written by DeVallon Scott. It stars Gig Young, Lynne Roberts, Mary Anderson, Harry Shannon, James Anderson, Willard Parker, Carla Balenda and Gerald Mohr. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography is by Nicholas Musuraca.

Plot finds Young as a hard-working public defender who seeks to clear the name of an alleged murderer (Anderson) who has been on the run for 12 years and who is only caught when he plays hero during a robbery attempt at the diner he has been working at.

Economical for sure, but this is a tight noirish legal thriller that is well written, tidily performed and has the skills of Musuraca for noir photographic shadings that belies the film's obvious low budget. Story is interesting because the accused is adamant he was framed all those years ago, and when we see his story in flashback we understand just why Young's lawyer is so determined to crack the case. So roping in his ex policeman father (Shannon excellent), who lost an arm in service, the scene is set for trying to track down witnesses and hopefully prove the client's innocence.

The pic then shifts into noir gear, cynicism hangs heavy as the one time group of young upwardly mobile socialite witnesses are now either dead, damaged by fate or have mental health problems. The American Dream has not surfaced for these people, and with a couple of nifty twists for resolution purpose, pic - while not a hidden gem or anything like that - is worth tracking down by fans of noir like crime programmers. 7/10

Gig Young and Harry Shannon make such a likeable team as father & son sleuths it's too bad this absorbing little RKO potboiler didn't lead to a series.

James Anderson learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished when his bravery during a holdup reawakens interest in a murder he was accused of a dozen years earlier. The downward mobility most of those present on that fateful night twelve years earlier (one blind, one drunk, one mad) paints a surprisingly downbeat picture of life scraping along the bottom in the good old U. S. of A.

The main shortcoming of Hunt The Man Down is that it's too short. It tells the attempt to exonerate a man of a crime committed a dozen years earlier, half a dozen eye-witnesses to which have long since scattered. That's a lot a backstory to cram into a scant 68 minutes – programmer length – when the plot to unfurl is almost as complicated as The Killing or Out of the Past. Despite some nicely observed detail, ranging from Los Angeles' Skid Row to Beverly Hills estates where maids stand by swimming pools with towels on their arm, the many characters don't get their due – Hunt The Man Down becomes less complex than confusing.

James Anderson, working as a dishwasher in a bar that's held up after hours, shoots and kills the intruder; in the resultant publicity, he's spotted as the man who went on the lam before being sentenced for murder some years before. It falls to the public defender (Gig Young) to prove his innocence. With the help of his father, a one-armed retired cop (Harry Shannon), he tries to locate the guests at the impromptu drinking party in 1938 which (as such shindigs so often do) ended in the violent death of one of the merry-makers. He finds the original witnesses elusive, dissembling, deranged or dead. He also finds that, once a habit for homicide takes hold, it's hard to break....

Though Young looks, well, young, he was 37 at the time, with close to two dozen movies behind him. He's still far and away the best-known member of the cast, with the exception of Iris Adrian (as a streel) and Cleo Moore (who shows up for the concluding courtroom scene in a knock-‘em-dead black number, topped off by the sort of hat worn only by floozies in witness boxes). The movie could have used more of her, and of Adrian. For that matter, it could have used more of just about everything.

Watching Hunt The Man Down put me in mind of a Law And Order episode where Mandy Patinkin had to be retried again after jumping bail some 20 years after the crime and Sam Waterston's problem was the same as Gig Young's, missing witnesses. Only Young is the public defender.

James Anderson after years of hiding foils a robbery at a restaurant/bar where he was a dishwasher. That act of heroism cost him his freedom.

Young is appointed to handle his new trial and he prevails on his retired cop father Harry Shannon to locate all the people who were witnesses. On the night in question Anderson fell in with a crowd of young 20 something yuppies as we would call them today. One of them is shot while he's sleeping and Anderson is the one who looks good for it.

This group has gone up, down, and sideways on the social scale in the intervening years. One murder, and two attempts on other witnesses convince Young he's got an innocent client. In the end it's an act of kindly deception perpetrated on one of them that's the key to solving the case.

Standing out in this film is Willard Parker as the blind veteran, once a rising star in business now a bookbinder. Lynne Roberts who believes in Anderson's innocence and Cleo Moore a brassy blond from the Veda Ann Borg school. Veda must have been busy because Cleo's playing her kind of part and she does well with it.

Hunt The Man Down is a well made B film from RKO and it looks like a television pilot. I think that Young and Shannon in a series based on this film would have worked.

A good screenplay :a William Irish-like hero against the outside world ,with father-and-son investigating in the tradition of Ellery Queen .Classic murder mystery indeed.

After risking his life in break-in ,a man whose photograph makes all the headlines ends up in jail for he was once sentenced to death and escaped after his warden had a heart attack.

But he claims he's totally innocent and there were witnesses on that fateful night when the murder was committed. Hence the necessity to find all these people ,some of whom are dead or mentally ill; the problem of the movie is that it's inevitably too short, and too hurried for comfort: one has not enough time to make acquaintance with the witnesses who become suspects overnight. The fast pace of the movie does not help , but the scenes are generally strong and gripping ,acting is convincing.

The subject is very interesting though:how a man ,after a good deed , may go from one extreme (hero) to the other (criminal) overnight.

Jam Packed Little Movie with Probably more Characters than the Budget or the Short Running Time can Encompass. There is much Cynicism in the Fate of the Many "Witnesses" to the Murder at Hand. Some like Mental Illness, Alcoholism, and Class Elitism are quite at home in the World of Film-Noir.

The Movie does its best to keep all the Players in Line but it can be somewhat of a Challenge to keep them all Straight. But it makes up for the Complications with some Sharp Cinematography and Deeply Affected Participants. There is the Wrongly Accused Man trying to Unwind the Events that happened Years before, and Gig Young is the Public Defender trying Desperately to Help.

The Film is so Full of Interesting Stuff that it Manages to be Entertaining Despite the Confusion. There is more than one Great Scene and some others that are Lurid B-Movie Delights. In the End it just Needed more Breathing Room to Elaborate on some of the Truly Interesting and Off-Beat Characters. But as it Stands there are some really Intriguing Interludes and doesn't Pull Punches as it Relies on some Stylized Realism for its Portrayal of Pulp Fiction.

This RKO release is typical of the routine second-feature fare that TV would soon replace. It's a pretty pedestrian account of an innocent man (Anderson) being cleared of a murder charge by his Public Defender. There's quite a number of suspects, at the same time, the script muddles them in confusing fashion that takes away the guessing game. Young more or less walks through the undemanding role of attorney-defender, while the usually villainous Anderson gets a rare shot at a sympathetic role. Anderson is a familiar face from that era, especially from the popular Dragnet series. He's one of those unheralded actors with a strong presence that could spice up the dullest screenplay. Catch the early bar scene where he shows his trademark moody snarl, otherwise he's pretty much wasted. There's one scene, the "moment of truth" in the courtroom, where director Archainbaud rises above the script with a dollying shot of the unhinged Rolene (Balenda). It's a sudden, chilling camera move, and Balenda does well with the histrionics. Otherwise, this is the sort law and order melodrama that would soon be done on, say, Mr. District Attorney (1954).

Stumbled on this today. It is contrived and the direction like so many of that period can be obvious and almost makes you smile. It becomes like a Ten Little Indians. Gig is great but the others do a lot of "acting.. The ending becomes so ludicrous in the last ten minutes that everything before loses its significance. Still, it is not boring and quite gripping.

Low-budget murder mystery about a Public Defender trying to clear his client of a murder the man had been convicted of 12 years previously. Complicating things is the fact that he escaped custody after his conviction, but the PD believes the man to be innocent of the murder and works to find the real killer. Gig Young as the PD is okay, and James Anderson as the convicted killer is actually pretty good, but the picture as a whole just rambles along with little suspense, and despite some good character actors in the cast, the performances are generally below par. Director George Archainbaud was apparently more at home making westerns--he was churning out Gene Autry's TV series at Columbia at around this time--but even if he had tried to inject any liveliness into this picture, the hack script would have defeated his attempts. Average at best, the film climaxes with a courtroom scene that's straight out of an episode of "Perry Mason" and is just as predictable.

It amazes me when people dismiss a movie because of its short length. I much more appreciate a compact, well written and directed movie than some drivel that drags on and on and makes me wonder what happened to the editor. I watched this movie with low expectations since i had never heard of the director and most of the actors. Despite the number of central characters, the director did an excellent job of quickly defining them and getting to the point of the movie. Any additional footage would have been superfluous and only bogged down the steady pace of the movie. James Anderson was excellent at avoiding the stereotypical unjustly accused victim, he neither ranted about his predicament nor did he come across as the overly likable guy who just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, which is what is normally expected of that type of roll. Though it's hard to imagine a public defender putting as much work into the case as this one did, i thought it was a great bit of writing to make his pivotal discovery an accident despite the pd's dogged pursuit of those involved 12 years earlier. I highly recommend this movie to those who appreciate tightly written and economically directed movies.

Gig Young is a rather bland stand-in for Robert Mitchum in this murky film noir thriller about an attorney on a mission against the clock to track down witnesses to an old crime. The set up is actually a neat one, in which a seemingly innocent man is accused of being the suspect in a 12-year-old murder, leading a chief lawyer to track down witnesses to the crime to get their version of the events and to hopefully prove the man's innocence.

This set up turns out to be an excuse for the writer to shine a flashlight into some very murky areas of society, in which various promising characters have fallen by the wayside into the depths of alcoholism and mental illness. It sounds rather more interesting than it is, with pedestrian direction contributing to an overly familiar feel to the whole thing, and the lack of any stand out performances makes it a rather forgotten and forgettable piece too. It's not bad by any means, but it's not one of the classics.

Richard Kincaid (James Anderson) thwarts a robbery, but he turns out to be a fugitive hiding under a false identity. 12 years earlier, he was tried for murder, but escaped during the trial. The prosecutor spots him in the newspaper and promptly brings him back to trial. Public defender Paul Bennett (Gig Young) takes on his case and has to track down some long-gone witnesses.

This is a crime B-movie courtroom drama. The investigation is not the most exciting. It consists of Paul going around tracking down and interviewing each witness. There is some intermittent action and the court case. It's like an old school police procedural.

Gig Young stars with Lynne Roberts, Mary Anderson, and Gerald Mohr in "Hunt the Man Down," a 1950 B film.

James Anderson is an escaped criminal who makes a mistake by stopping a robbery where he is working. His face is shown in the newspaper, and he's immediately recognized by law enforcement as Richard Kincaid, who was on trial for murder and escaped 12 years earlier.

Anderson is assigned a public defender, Paul Bennett (Young) who listens to his story carefully. Anderson met some strangers who invited him to a party; he was in an altercation with the husband of a woman he was dancing with; Anderson took a gun away from the man and left, after threatening to kill the man himself. He threw the gun on the bed, though no one admitted seeing it. Later, the husband was found dead.

It's a tough story to break, and it falls to Bennett and an old detective (Harry Shannon) to find the witnesses. Twelve years earlier, they were couples; now, one man (Willard Parker) was blind from the war and believed his wife (Cleo Moore) dead (though she had left him).

The victim's wife had remarried (Gerald Mohr), and another witness had split with his wife and had become an alcoholic.

The detective and Bennett realized they were on to something when the witnesses started being attacked and/or killed.

Someone on this board said Gig Young made a bland Robert Mitchum type in this noir. The way this was directed was less noir and more documentary, which was a style for crime films around this time. For that style, Young seemed right and very public defender-like.

The one thing never addressed was why the wife and her husband, the man killed, slept in separate rooms. I mean, wouldn't someone have asked about that?

One character in this film was mentally unstable, but I can't figure out from the cast list which one she was. It's just as well -- her acting was abominable, totally off the wall.

This film comes to the defense, as it were, of public defenders, a much maligned group. So often in the media, they are denigrated and shown as the reason people are found guilty.

My sister worked for the PD office and would often hear from potential clients, should I use a public defender or a real lawyer? Public defenders in my sister's office won more cases than they lost; they are hard-working people and interested in their clients and in justice, not in money. It's a shame that this wasn't an important film, as it's a point that needs to be driven home.

A film noir from 1950 which plays like an early progenitor for TV's Law & Order (much like 1948's The Naked City). When an escaped murder suspect, James Anderson, is recaught due to his heroics during a bar robbery where he works, the services of a defense attorney, Gig Young, are brought to bear to exonerate him whereby he even enlists his retired one armed father (who was a detective), Harry Shannon, to help in the investigation. Years before Anderson met some people at a bar (he was adept at playing the piano) & they brought him along to keep the party going at an apartment w/everyone coupled up but then when the jealous husband of one of the women shows up, he picks a fight w/Anderson where a gun appears but Anderson disarms him throwing the gun on a bed behind him. Hours later the man is found dead w/the remaining couples testifying against Anderson at trial who managed to escape when his transfer guard had a heart attack. Now w/the audience up to date, Young & Shannon hunt down the witnesses from that day to get to the bottom of the crime which proves to be an uphill trek as some witnesses have died, gone crazy or have become alcoholics. Running a brisk 69 minutes (which further puts the viewer in the mindset of having watched a TV episode) the film keeps viewers on edge as every twist & turn begets a triumph or a defeat w/Young & Shannon an affable & able pair of lawmen. Co-starring 50's pin up Cleo Moore as one of the tracked down witnesses.

Great moody cinematography from Nick Musuraca but little else. Aside from Gig Young's public defender investigator and the guy who plays his law and order dad (shades of James Garner and Noah Beery here) the acting is one long crap fest. And the writing and direction are lackluster, at best. Not even a feeble attempt is made by scenarist DeVallon Scott to explore the interesting theme he has set up of glittering youth's fall, during WW2, from the moral and physical heights, as the seven "clean cut kids" of 1938 are, by 1946, financial and emotional wrecks. And although his pacing is decent, when over 75% of your actors ham it up or phone it in then director George Archinbault must be looked upon with at least a somewhat jaundiced eye. C plus.

PS...Bob Ewell playing a good guy? Again, less than stellar acting.

James Anderson has been living a quiet, anonymous life when he gets in the newspapers for thwarting a robbery. It's then the authorities in another city realize he's not who he claims to be. He was the defendant in a murder case who fled. That was twelve years ago, so it's time to either take a plea or drag all the witnesses and a jury together. Anderson doesn't have the money for an attorney, so public defender Gig Young takes on the case. With the aid of his father, retired police detective Harry Shannon, he tries to track down witnesses and figure out who really committed the murder.

It's definitely not an A picture, but that doesn't mean that anyone is slacking off in George Archainbaud's movie. I was particularly impressed by the handling of legal issues. They're based firmly on the law, even if the situation is a bit idealized; this appears to be Young's only case. In reality, he would be handling many at the same time. Even the error I thought I spotted turned out not to be wrong. Usually, when a defendant flees the court's jurisdiction after arraignment, the case proceeds. The defendant is deemed to have abdicated his rights to participate in the trial voluntarily. However, this does not happen in capital cases. As a murder trial, this was one.

Nick Musuraca's lighting is, as usual, excellent, and the lack of major stars doesn't prevent a lot of familiar faces from showing up. They include Mary Anderson, Iris Adrian, Lynne Roberts, Gerald Mohr, Cleo Moore, Al Bridge, and even Frank Cady.

This unusual RKO supporting feature was ambitious to say the least. Its director was a prolific French born veteran of numerous American features, George Archainbaud. Some of his work has been recognised for its artistic merits (13 Women '32 - The Lost Squadron '32) Archainbaud turned to TV later in his career. The involved and imaginative story was penned by generally undistinguished writer De Vallon Scott - both the direction and story were worthy of being treated to main feature status. An interesting, above average cast bring this rather complicated tale to life with dedicated conviction. Gig Young (why he chose to lump himself with that peculiar name is beyond understanding) plays a dedicated public defender working to uncover the truth behind a re-opened murder case that spans a pre and post WW11 timeline. To save on investigative expenses he asks for assistance from his retired ex-cop father (the always interesting Harry Shannon who played the father of 'Citizen Kane' in '41) together, they make a formidable team.

The time distance between the original crime can make keeping track of this intriguing plot a little difficult - as the audience is expected to remember who the players are - and with most not being particularly well known, this demands some concentration - especially as the war years have brought various changes to their circumstances and appearances. It also looks as if RKO may have shortened the production schedule or made post production cuts at some stage (?) There's no boring padding within this story, it starts and holds fast to the main threads till the end - while it could have done with a tad more character development to assist us to more readily identify them. The casting makes good use of James Anderson (To Kill A Mockingbird '62) and a bevy of wonderful looking - hard working B feature women, including Mary Anderson (Lifeboat '44), Carla Balenda (Sealed Cargo '51).

Especially interesting is the Grace Kellyish; Christy Palmer, who plays the eventual wife to the Gerald Mohr character. Christy Palmer, who in real life married actor Alan Baxter, doesn't seem to have stared in any other film (our loss!) she is another plus for this little movie. Good use is also made of a variety of character actors all given snappy lines to bolster interest as it speedily rolls along. Visually, it's perfectly captured on film by the marvellous Nicholas Musuraca. Above average and under recognised.

Note: The old C&C TV print currently being run on local Aust TV is in need of replacing and either they are running it at a faster speed or they have clipped it - as it only clocks in at 65m while being listed at 69mins. Those four mins just might have helped with further character recognition.

When the story begins, an armed robber breaks into a cafe and the guy tries to shoot a guy who is working there as he steals the money. However, the worker manages to overpower the robber and shoots him in the process. Now you'd think he'd become a big hero. Instead, the police see the newspaper clipping showing a photo of the hero...and he's recognized as a man who vanished 12 years ago after he was convicted of murder but before he could be sentenced.

The public defender (Gig Young) believes the reluctant hero and decides to investigate the case himself*. Soon, he's able to track down a few of the witnesses but then something weird happens....folks try to kill the public defender and his father! And, they also try to kill one of the witnesses. Obviously somebody doesn't want anyone looking into this old case!

While "Hunt the Man Down" is clearly a B-movie due to its short run-time and cast of mostly 2nd and 3rd tier actors, it's a terrific film. Well acted, tense and a nice script more than make up for the cheap production. Well worth seeing.

*I have no idea IF defense attorneys EVER do this. They do it in films and on TV but I also know that they are generally overworked and overwhelmed and assume they literally don't have enough time to investigate anything.