The Walking Target

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...

Well-made, well-written film noir. The Walking Target is a nice reminder that the wellspring of film noir is a great journey.

You will be rewarded for appreciating the simplicity of the many early scenes. The movie is lean. The protagonist makes a beeline for his 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.

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.

Ron Foster, Joan Evans, and Merry Anders star in "The Walking Target" a B film from 1960.

Foster is Nick Harbin who, after five years in prison for robbery, is released. However, the money was never recovered. Most people assume that Harbin knows where it is and will eventually go for it. The police plan on watching his every step.

To me this was a faux pas. This was an interstate crime of robbing payroll, meaning that the federal statute of limitations was five years. If they really wanted the money, they should have let him serve three or four years.

But I digress. Nick is extremely jumpy with his girlfriend Susan (Anders) and a friend of hers, a businessman. What he doesn't realize - but figures it out soon enough - is that Susan didn't bother waiting for him; she's in cahoots with her new beau to get the money.

During the robbery, a close friend of Nick's (Norm Alden) was killed running from the cops. Nick is determined to find his widow, Gail (Joan Evans) and give her half of the money. He locates her finally in her home town of Gold City, Arizona. He's followed.

Pretty decent crime drama.