Follow Me Quietly

Superb, little-known noir - from a story by Anthony Mann (reportedly, he even directed some of it)! - which is certainly Fleischer's best from the genre after THE NARROW MARGIN (1952). Although it took me a while to warm up to the two leads (especially William Lundigan, given his crucial role of an obsessive police detective who is virtually a mirror-image of the vicious killer, a concept done to death in subsequent thrillers), their relationship is nicely developed and the rest of the cast - particularly Jeff Corey as the hero's wise-cracking sidekick and Edwin Max as "The Judge", when finally unmasked (actually a meek little man, not unlike the Peter Lorre of M [1931]!) - also performs admirably.

However, where the film - a brisk, taut 60 minutes! - truly scores is in its brilliant direction of the suspense sequences: the startling revelatory zoom of the villain's blank-faced dummy is particularly striking, whereas the scene in which we realize that "The Judge" has effectively replaced the dummy in Lundigan's office is genuinely creepy; these two sequences, not to mention the 'look' of the dummy itself, uncannily predate the Italian giallo genre by about 15 years - and I just have to wonder whether Mario Bava had actually watched this film somewhere down the line, and was perhaps reminded of it, when making his own seminal thriller BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964)!! Besides, the climax by the huge water tanks is quite splendid, and rarely has the rain been so ominously used as in this film!

A classic of its kind and, in hindsight, an influential one which, hopefully, Warners will consider releasing on DVD soon - as it's actually better than some of the noirs which are out already or have been announced by them...

Follow Me Quietly (1949)

*** (out of 4)

Exciting film noir from RKO has a detective (William Lundigan) trying to track down a mysterious killer known as "The Judge". I haven't heard too many film noir lovers mention this film but I found it to be very tense and brilliantly directed. The film only runs 59-minutes but there's a lot of style throughout each one of them. The ending is full of action and some nice suspense. The film runs at a very fast pace and is over before you know it but for the life of me I can't figure out why this film isn't talked about more. Certainly worth checking out if you can catch it on TCM.

I saw this film when I was 10 years old and it has haunted me all my life. At first I could only remember a guy waiting in a room for someone to come back, but then there was the idea of a crazy murderer who goes bizerk when it rains and then the memory of all these dummies in the police station and the murderer gets in there somehow, I don;t know how, but as he is in the room someone comes in, a policeman, just to check out the dummies and the murderer goes and sits in a chair so he won't be discovered because he looks like all the other dummies that are sitting there, and as he is sitting he is facing a window...and we see that it is beginning to rain...and there is a close up of his hand gripping the arm of the chair...all this is from my memory of the film as a 10-year old - when I managed to discover what the film was with the use of IMDb and got a video and looked at it - it all seemed pretty harmless stuff - I saw the film in a little cinema in Shaftesbury Dorset with my brother. My parents left us there and had no idea what the film was. The memory of the American streets, and the cars and the black and white quality have all stayed with me...

Interesting B movie starring William Lundigan and Dorothy Patrick about a police detective's search for a serial killer called "The Judge."

Gritty city scenes (although as one poster points out, it was probably an RKO set) enhance the atmosphere, and it's one of the things that makes "Follow Me Quietly" unusual.

Two more items of interest: A very exciting finale and the twist of having the police make a dummy model from everything they know about the perpetrator. In one scene, Lundigan is talking to the dummy's back, and it turns out to actually be the killer.

Lundigan was a good looking, poor man's Joel McCrea, perfect to be a detective in real life but not much of an actor. He doesn't exude much energy. Patrick, an attractive blonde, neither wildly glamorous or beautiful, gives a spirited performance as a tabloid reporter.

Normally lightweight William Lundigan is quite good as the hero cop of this quickie programmer. The rest of the cast is also quite good and the suspense remains high throughout. The plot is deceptively simple which is what makes the whole thing work in this atmospheric thriller. The only disappointment you'll have is that it's over so quickly.