SHIELD FOR MURDER (1954)

Edmund O’Brien doesn’t inspire much confidence catching the shadow of a ‘boom-mike’ right at the start of his directorial debut.  But the tone & attitude of this film noir is so distinctive (make that odd), with everyone playing in italics, it adds interest to all the familiar Bad Cop story beats.  O’Brien opens by killing a bookie’s bag man, grabbing the 25 ‘Gs’ he’s carrying and staging the hold-up/murder to look like a botched arrest, unaware a witness watched it all from a second story window.  Already pegged as a violent cop, back at the station fellow cops and the local newspaper reporter are primed to be suspicious.  Only detective pal John Agar backs him . . . for a while.  But the case spins out of control with O’Brien losing his cool when he finds that deaf witness to the killing, striking out again just as a pair of cops start nosing around and the usual ‘Blue Wall’ of silence threatens to crack.  Add on a girlfriend who’s getting tired of waiting; a sex-hungry barfly eager to ‘engage;’ an expensive proposed flight out of the country with costly fake I.D.; a shootout at an active public swimming pool; and O’Brien’s signature sweaty runs from danger and you’ve got plenty to chew on.  O’Brien has everyone play with a sense of barely controlled hysteria (especially himself, an unusually irredeemable brute), but hasn’t the action chops to get the most out of the tight spots he works himself into.  (That indoor public swimming pool shootout leaves a lot of suspense on the table.)  Agar uses his big friendly dog persona to good effect as loyal pal, but other relationships feel undercooked.  Never less than watchable, you can’t help but wonder what hard-nose helmers like Phil Karlson or Don Siegel might have done with it.*

DOUBLE-BILL: *Don’t just wonder, see Karlson finesse similar ideas & situations (with reporters rather than cops) in SCANDAL SHEET/’52.