Warning Shot (1967)

January 18, 1967, release date

Directed by Buzz Kulik

Screenplay by Mann Rubin

Based on the novel 711: Officer Needs Help by Whit Masterson

Music by Jerry Goldsmith

Edited by Archie Marshek

Cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc

David Janssen as Sgt. Tom Valens

Joan Collins as Joanie Valens

Ed Begley as Capt. Roy Klodin

Keenan Wynn as Sgt. Ed Musso

Sam Wanamaker as Frank Sanderman

Lillian Gish as Alice Willows

Stefanie Powers as Liz Thayer

Eleanor Parker as Doris Ruston

George Grizzard as Walt Cody

George Sanders as Calvin York

Steve Allen as Perry Knowland

Carroll O’Connor as Paul Jerez

Walter Pidgeon as Orville Ames

Vito Scotti as the fashion designer

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Produced by Bob Banner Associates, Inc.

Warning Shot is one of those quirky films that reflect the fashions and the customs of the time in which it was made, in this case, the 1960s. It features a jazzy, hip soundtrack and women sporting beehive hairdos. It seems even more dated to me in some ways than films from the 1940s. Everything about Warning Shot feels a bit far out and groovy, but the story itself holds up well because it’s familiar, especially to noir fans. It’s just the hairstyles and the fashion that are so different.

The main character is a police detective who shoots a respected doctor in self-defense and must repair his reputation in the aftermath. The police detective, Sgt. Tom Valens, is a sympathetic character for viewers, if not for the other characters in the film, because he believes in himself and must prove himself to others. The film starts from his point of view, and viewers mostly stick with him through all his setbacks.

The film is based on a novel by Whit Masterson, which is actually the pen name for two writers who wrote several novels that were adapted into many famous films noir. Click here for more information about the pen name Whit Masterson and here for a complete list of the books published under the name.

The opening credits appear over a fuzzy, out-of-focus background. The narrative starts with the camera coming into focus, with a shot of what looks like a backyard patio at night, in Los Angeles. It’s very foggy, which makes it even more difficult to see. The camera pans right to a man hiding in the bushes at 11191 Seascape Apartments. When he leaves the premises and approaches a squad car, viewers realize that he is a police detective (Sgt. Ed Musso) and not a prowler or a criminal. Musso wants to quit for the night, so his partner, Sgt. Valens, calls in the request. Their police captain tells them to remain on the stakeout for another hour.

Valens gets out of the squad car to continue the surveillance. He and his partner are on a call about a prowler; tensions are high because a killer has already struck several times and is still at large. Someone comes out of the apartment building, and he starts running when Valens calls out to him, telling to stop and that he is a police officer. When the man is cornered, Valens tells him to drop his bag. The man does, but he pulls what looks like a gun from his coat pocket. Valens shoots and kills him in self-defense. He and Musso subsequently learn from searching his pockets that he is Dr. James B. Ruston of Bel Air.

Later, when they search the premises of the Seascape Apartments, Musso and other officers cannot find Ruston’s gun. Valens is put on desk duty until after the inquest into the events surrounding Ruston’s death is complete. His captain, Roy Klodin, thinks that Valens may be suffering from memories of being shot on the job several months earlier; in other words, he thinks that Valens is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and that it may be affecting his judgment.

At the inquest, Paul Jerez, the man leading the inquest, brings up the topic of warning shots. He asks Captain Klodin when he is on the stand to explain police procedure regarding warning shots for the jury:

• Jerez: “. . . Maybe you can tell us why he [Valens] failed to fire a customary warning shot when he tried to stop Dr. Ruston.”

• Klodin: “You know we don’t fire a warning shot.”

• Jerez: “Yes, I know. Tell them [the jury panel].”

• Klodin: “Our officers are instructed never to shoot unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. This is to prevent hitting some innocent bystander.”

It’s a bit odd that Jerez uses the word customary because he knows that warning shots are not customary police procedure. But he does allow Captain Klodin to make this point clear for everyone in the courtroom. This is an example of the quirky contradictory nature of the film, but in this case, the information is also serious. A warning shot might have saved Dr. Ruston’s life, but it might have killed an innocent bystander and it is against police department policy.

Warning Shot also reflects the political and cultural issues of the 1960s. People protest Valens’s actions—and police brutality in general—outside the building where his inquest is held. They are angry that a police officer killed a prominent citizen like Dr. Ruston, one who traveled to Baha, Mexico, to provide charity medical care to the residents there. Picketers chant, “Valens, no. Valens, no. Police brutality must go.” A few individuals are interviewed in front of television cameras, for example:

◊ A white woman interviewed near the picket line says, “When I was young, a policeman was always a friend, someone to be trusted. But now it’s different. Police are different. And how do I explain Sergeant Valens to my children? How do I say to them, ‘Trust him, let him help you across the street, even though his hands are bloody’?”

◊ A black man interviewed near the same picket line says: “I’m just here to see if the same punishment they would have used on me if I had killed an innocent man will be applied to this Valens case or will he get the usual coat of whitewash?”

The protesters could be talking about current events today. In these examples, their protests and arguments don’t sound dated at all.

(This blog post about Warning Shot contains some spoilers.)

The inquest jury panel is not very sympathetic to the police and decides to indict Sgt. Valens on charges of manslaughter. The prosecutor, Frank Sanderman, is on a vendetta. He’s happy to prosecute any cop who crosses the line because his own father, “a honkey,” as he calls him, ventured into the wrong neighborhood and was killed because he didn’t understand. The implication is that an officer shot an innocent man simply because the man didn’t understand the instructions to stop when the officer spoke to him.

Orville Ames, a famous and successful lawyer, won’t represent Valens unless he pleads guilty and says that he made a mistake. Valens won’t plead guilty to something that he didn’t do and because he is sure of what he saw. He decides to investigate the circumstances around his meeting with Dr. Ruston himself. Valens has only ten days to pursue his investigation, which he is not authorized to undertake, before he has to report for his next court hearing.

During his unauthorized investigation, Valens talks to Perry Knowland, a television host who likes to stir up trouble by taking unpopular sides in local issues. Knowland is a character who would fit in today: He would probably be an online podcaster advocating several conspiracy theories and stirring up millions of followers. He is paid to spread rumors and innuendo because it increases television ratings. The unpopular side to the Ruston case is Valens. The public thinks that Valens is a rogue cop who acted hastily and killed an innocent man and that he is making up the story about Ruston having a gun. Valens begins to realize how unpopular his cause is simply by talking to Knowland and learning about his methods.

Valens discovers the truth about Dr. Ruston. He tracks down the missing gun. And he finds the person who killed Dr. Ruston’s secretary, Liz Thayer, and attempted to kill him. It is obvious in the final sequence that Valens was right all along. And this sequence also ties in the theme about a “warning shot.” Valens doesn’t deliver a warning shot; that’s not part of police protocol after all. But he does deliver a verbal warning to the killer, who decides to disregard it.

David Janssen gives a great performance as Sgt. Valens, the cop who seems to be a victim of the times and public opinion. The film starts from his point of view, and viewers stick with him through all his setbacks because they are in the same position that he is in: trying to figure out what happened and why. Janssen has a world-weary yet stoic persona that works well in this role. I found it very easy to root for him as he searched for the truth in a world he feels has been turned upside down.

House of Strangers (1949)

June 30, 1949, release date

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Screenplay by Phillip Yordan

Based on I’ll Never Go There Any More by Jerome Weidman

Music by Daniele Amfitheatrof

Edited by Harmon Jones

Cinematography by Milton R. Krasner

Edward G. Robinson as Gino Monetti

Susan Hayward as Irene Bennett

Richard Conte as Max Monetti

Luther Adler as Joe Monetti, the oldest brother

Paul Valentine as Pietro Monetti

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., as Tony Monetti

Debra Paget as Maria Domenico

Hope Emerson as Helena Domenico

Esther Minciotti as Theresa Monetti, wife of Gino Monetti

Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox-Film Corporation

Produced by Twentieth Century Fox-Film Corporation

House of Strangers is the story of the Monetti family patriarch Gino and his four sons. It’s really more accurate to say that it is the story of Max Monetti and his father Gino and his brothers, but Gino is almost as important to the story as Max is. The film starts with Max, and he is the one who goes through a transformation in character as a result of all that he experiences.

After the opening credits, the film starts with an overhead shot of a busy outdoor street market in an Italian neighborhood of New York City. It’s a crowded urban setting with an overhead el in the near background. The film then cuts to street level and to Max Monetti maneuvering through the crowded sidewalk. He stops at a bank building whose façade is etched with “Monetti Trust & Loan Association.” He visits his brothers in their bank offices, but not before security alerts the brothers and an officer frisks Max. It’s already obvious that this will be a story full of tension and fraternal conflict. It is, in fact, a story of sibling rivalry, betrayal, murder, and greed.

At the time of Max’s visit to his brothers, Gino, the father, has already been dead five years. Theresa, their mother, is back living on Mulberry Street in the crowded tenement that Gino always wanted to escape. Max’s brothers want to pay him off with a thousand dollars, but he won’t take the money or anything else from them. But he does tell them that he wants his seven years back.

After his visit with his brothers, Max Monetti goes to a luxury high-rise apartment. He lets himself in with a key that he finds under a vase on the mantel in the hallway. He wanders the apartment; he makes himself at home and takes a shower. Irene Bennett comes home and knows that it’s Max in the shower from the clothes that he left in the bedroom. Instead of being angry or frightened, she is thrilled that he’s back. But it isn’t long before they argue about Max’s need for vengeance, and it is revealed that Max was in jail for seven years—the seven years that he feels he is missing from his life.

Max leaves Irene’s apartment and goes back to the “big house,” the family home. He still has a key for this residence, and he lets himself in. He cranks up a record player and listens to opera under his father’s portrait hanging in the living room. The camera then tracks up the interior stairs of the house, and when it pans into a flashback, viewers see Gino Monetti bathing in a tub and singing opera. Joe, one of the brothers, comes in to remind his father to get to the bank for the start of the workday. Gino says that the depositors can wait and makes his son scrub his back. Much of the remainder of the film is told in flashback, starting from the camera tracking up the staircase of the Monetti home.

Gino Monetti arrived in the United States a poor barber and remade his life by building up the Monetti Trust & Loan Association. He becomes a respected man with wealth and influence. And none feel his influence more than his four sons: Max, Joe, Anthony, and Pietro. Max is a lawyer and the favorite son, and he enjoys some independence because of his occupation. But his father’s influence is felt by all four sons. Joe, Anthony, and Pietro are more directly under their father’s thumb because they work, in different capacities, for their father in his bank.

Max is a lawyer with an office inside the Monetti Trust & Loan Association. Irene Bennett walks into his office one day unannounced, which is how they meet. The firm of Hanford, Sloan and Elliott recommended Max to her. Max knows a thing or two about the firm because he used to work there. He tells Irene that the people there recommend only low-class clients. When she pulls out a cigarette, Max makes her light it herself. Their conversation is filled with acid one-liners. Max often ends his speech saying, “Period.” It’s a habit that comes up between the two of them throughout the film. Irene hires Max to clean up a friend’s debts, debts that this friend owes to her. Max doesn’t want the work, but she insists. Before Max accepts the assignment, he insists that Irene say, “Please,” and she does. In spite of Max’s poor treatment of her, Irene starts an affair with him.

The dialogue between Max Monetti and Irene Bennett in House of Strangers reminds me of another Richard Conte film: New York Confidential. Richard Conte’s character in that film, Nick Magellan, also has a penchant for witty dialogue. Click here for my blog post about New York Confidential.

(This blog post about House of Strangers contains spoilers.)

Joe, Anthony, and Pietro are almost afraid of their father and do anything that he says. Maria is Max’s girl, but Anthony (Tony) is the one who dotes on her. On one particular Wednesday when Max arrives for dinner, Irene Bennett calls for him, and he leaves without eating. He also leaves Maria in Tony’s care. In spite of his rather poor treatment of her, and even after he’s seen around town with Irene, Maria still insists on marrying Max.

Gino Monetti doesn’t keep accurate records and loses his bank when bank inspectors close it. The local people with accounts in the bank turn on Monetti and become an angry mob, attacking him outside the bank building. Gino recuperates in his bedroom at home, where Max arrives after spending a lot of time checking bank records. He tells Gino that he is accused of a felony called “misapplication of funds.” Half the transactions have not been recorded over the years. Gino could be indicted on twenty-two counts, and each count carries a one-year sentence.

Joe, Pietro, and Tony turn on their father: He has always treated them badly, and he never shared the decision making with them. They don’t want to accept any responsibility for what their father has done. When their mother enters the bedroom, Max says, “You’re just in time, Ma. Did you know you brought up a houseful of strangers?” Gino orders Joe, Pietro, and Tony out of his bedroom; Max is the only son who remains behind.

Max is his father’s defense lawyer when his father’s trial begins. Max visits one of the jurors, a single mother with children. He wants to convince her to vote for his father’s innocence, but she won’t listen to Max and won’t take his money, and she asks him to leave. Out on the street, Max is arrested for jury tampering. Joe must have betrayed Max: He’s the only one that Max told of his plan. In fact, Max went to the juror’s tenement apartment only because Joe refused to go when Max asked him.

After the trial and Max’s imprisonment, Joe takes over Gino’s bank. Gino visits Max in prison and tells him that Joe must have ratted on him. When Gino dies while Max is in prison, Max is given a pass to go to the wake at the family home, where threatens revenge. Their mother is distraught: Now she has no husband and no sons.

Back now to the present: Max is sitting in the chair in his parents’ living room, and he starts talking to his father’s portrait about revenge on his brothers. It reminded me of a soliloquy from a Greek tragedy. Max states that he could steal Maria back from Tony (Tony and Maria married after Max was imprisoned). He could create a scandal at the bank and have Joe indicted. Elaine would leave Joe, and Pietro would lose his job at the bank. Pietro and Joe would have nothing else. And Max wouldn’t need to waste any more time on Pietro because he has always been a dumbhead, a name Gino Monetti always used for his son.

But Max continues: He won’t hold onto his anger any more. He calls Irene, who is ready to leave for San Francisco. She agrees to come to the old Monetti family home and pick up Max. Max tell her to come faster, period.

Joe, Tony, and Pietro show up at the house before Irene arrives. Joe sets Pietro on Max, and Pietro beats Max and carries Max up the stairs, on Joe’s orders. Joe is in the lead, Pietro follows with Max on his shoulders, and Tony is the last in line. Joe’s speech as they make their way up the stairs:

Just because you’ve been in jail, you think you’re tough. ’Cause I sit in a bank all day, you think I’m soft. We were both born on Mulberry Street. I can be tough too. One thing the old man taught me—never give a guy a chance. When you got him down, don’t press your luck. Finish him. You don’t have to fight the same guy twice. In some ways, the old man was right.

Joe learned his father’s lessons well. Gino Monetti was always a tyrant to his family members and he was ruthless in business. Joe may hate his father, but he is just like him. Joe wants Pietro to throw Max over the balcony railing and kill him, but when Joe calls Pietro dumbhead, Pietro lets Max’s body slide off his shoulders and goes after Joe, trying to choke him at the railing. Max regains consciousness and tries to stop Pietro. Anthony does nothing; in fact, there is a shot of him looking pleased that Pietro has turned on Joe. Max finally convinces Pietro to stop; he tells Pietro he is not a dumbhead and that he is smart enough not to do Joe’s bidding now and Pa’s bidding from the past.

The DVD that I watched came with audio commentary by Foster Hirsch, and he provided some interesting observations and background information for the film. But I disagreed with him on a couple of points. According to Hirsch, House of Strangers is a film noir crossed with caustic romantic comedy. That term, caustic romantic comedy, doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think there’s any comedy in the relationship between Max and Irene. I could appreciate the crackling dialogue between them, especially when they first meet. But I never once mistook their interactions for comedy.

I listened to Hirsch’s audio commentary on the DVD for Daisy Kenyon, another film noir.  In my blog post about Daisy Kenyon, I also devoted a couple of paragraphs to Hirsch’s commentary because I disagreed with some of his points about that film, too, specifically with regard to women and his observations about women and female characters. Click here for my blog post about Daisy Kenyon.

Hirsch mentioned that Edward G. Robinson almost didn’t take the role because he thought the character of Irene Bennett was unnecessary. Hirsch is quick to agree with Robinson and describes the character of Irene Bennett as decorative. Again, I don’t agree. I think the film would have been odd without her. Irene is one of the few characters (Max’s mother Theresa may be the only other one) who really cares for Max and is concerned about his happiness. The comparisons between Irene and Maria, the woman picked out by Max’s family to marry him, show how Max’s character develops over the course of the film. Irene is the one who shows him, by her love, that he has other options besides continuing the patterns that his father taught him from childhood.