The Walking Target

Hard case Ron Foster serves his time. Five years ago,he and two accomplices stole $260,000; they died, he went to prison. They never found the money. Now he's getting out, and everyone wants to play him for the money: ex-girlfriend Merry Anders and her new guy, a 'businessman' who figures he won't have to pay taxes on it, Detective Harp McGuire, who wants to get the money and put Foster back in prison. All Foster wants is the money, and ex-girlfriend Joan Evans, who married his buddy who wound up dead in the robbery.

It's a good set-up, and the performances are good, if a trifle hackneyed; also I thought the character changes that make this a story and not just an anecdote pile up very quickly at the end. Perpetual B director Edward Cahn does his usual competent but uninspired job, and it moves at a pretty good pace.

A 5-year jail sentence for a payroll robbery seems to have left Nick (Ronald Foster) looking as unreformed as when he went in. That's how the prison governor sees it. Ditto a detective watching closely, and the local press too. That's why Nick feels he's walking around with a target on his back, as the only survivor, the only one who knows where the loot is stashed.

Merry Anders plays the blonde cutesy-pops who has supposedly been waiting faithfully for Nick all along, but then it seems that 'faithful' isn't quite the word, and Nick switches his attention to the widow of one of the gang, for whose death he feels a bit of survivor guilt. (A flashback shows Nick persuading him that it'll be a pushover, and organising the concealment of the money in the chassis of the getaway car.)

Rather improbably, Nick is able to trace the car to a junkyard in the desert, its precious contents still undiscovered. But there we must leave the plot, so as not to spoil the fun - though you might reflect on why the wisecrack "Happiness won't buy money" should be uttered near the end.

Nick Harbin (Ron Foster) gets out of prison after a five year stretch. When he tries to reconnect with his old comrades, he finds that things have changed quite a bit while he was gone. No one seems interested in him, other than to get to the big money he stole.

A flashback sequence shows us that Nick actually has a conscience, and wants to make amends for the tragic event that haunts him. Now, hounded by both the cops and the press, with his old cronies converging on him, Nick has one last chance at redemption.

THE WALKING TARGET is another entertaining, hard-boiled crime thriller. Foster is quite believable in his role. Merry Anders co-stars as Nick's cheating girlfriend, and Joan Evans is the woman of Nick's dreams, the one who got away...

Ron Foster is "Nick", fresh out of jail for robbery, and the loot has never been found. That's pretty much the opening line, said by the prison warden, as he releases Nick back to the world. and hot on his trail is Detective Brodney (Harp McGuire). and the mob. and the people he thinks are his friends. And Joan Evans is "Gail"... who may or may not be an innocent bystander. Evans gets top billing in the cast list, so she must be pretty important to the plot. Written by Stephen Kandel. He wrote almost exclusively for television, and this. and a couple films earlier in his career. Directed by Edward Cahn, for United Artists, towards the end of his career... only worked a couple more years after this. The "fist fights" are just terrible. so fake. The story itself is pretty good, the acting is pretty good. Picture and sound quality are great. entertaining enough.

There are moments of a real noir here, but the happy ending spoils it. The acting and the action are good, and the story is good as well, with great suspense and no possibility for anyone to have a guess at how it all will end. The best part of the film is actually the music, which keeps following the action very closely from behind without getting too dominant. The photo is also convincingly in noir style, black and white in shades and dark atmosphere, and of course there are the usual fisticuffs and settlements crowning the troublesome affair. As usual, it would have been easier for the hoodlums to let the hero get away with the girl without causing any trouble, but then again that's what hoodlums are for.