Claude, played by Vincent Edwards, is a gorgeous, impeccably dressed young man who pitches his respectable day job (seventy-six twenty before taxes) to become a contract killer. He's smart. "A real genius, like I said!" repeats a flunky. Claude's got ability, talent. I got lulled into thinking this way too until Claude drops some intense misogyny about halfway through the film; suddenly he's the real evil in this picture and we start to truly fear for his mark. Amazing little script, acted by very few players. Shot in a week but scenes are nicely staged. This flick is part of the Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics (Vol. I) I picked up recently. If only Martin Scorsese, who has described many of these films as ones that played a key part of his informal film education (he also appears in the extra features on many disks), would only show the stunning economy found in these films in his own. An innocuous little electric guitar riff adds to the anxious atmosphere of being lead into dangerous ground by a lunatic.
3 comments:
That speech about the ladies dampened some of my enthusiasm for this movie as well, but it still has lots of great moments. And wow--what a catchy score! It's still stuck in my head over a month after I've seen the movie!
Though disturbing, I thought his misogyny was vital to the characterization of this supposedly cool headed killer!
Agreed! It made him more complex. I think it annoyed me because I wanted him to be this cool, mysterious Alain Delon type, but overall, it did make the movie more memorable. Now I want to see it again.
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