Murder by Contract (1958)

December 1958 release date

Directed by Irving Lerner

Screenplay by Ben Simcoe

Music by Perry Botkin

Edited by Carlo Lodato

Cinematography by Lucien Ballard

Vince Edwards as Claude

Phillip Pine as Marc

Herschel Bernardi as George

Caprice Toriel as Billie Williams

Michael Granger as Mr. Moon

Cathy Browne as Mary, the secretary

Joseph Mell as Harry, the hotel waiter

Frances Osborne as Miss Wiley, Williams’s former maid

Steven Ritch as the plainclothes officer with the tear gas

Janet Brandt as the woman in the movie theater

Davis Roberts as the clerk at Hall of Records

Don Garrett as James William Mayflower

Gloria Victor as Miss Wexley

Cisco Houston as the rifle salesperson

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Produced by Orbit Productions

The use of music is very effective in Murder by Contract, much like the zither in The Third Man (1949). The Columbia logo is the first thing to appear on the screen with no sound, just silence. Then the film cuts to the opening credits, which appear over a man (Claude, the contract killer) shaving and getting dressed. Now comes a kicky, whimsical, foreign-sounding guitar score on the soundtrack. This guitar score is the theme music for the film and is repeated throughout. The man continues dressing, with a suit and a tie, and then he shines his shoes. He could be any businessman getting ready for an office job.

After the credits, the film cuts to Claude visiting Mr. Moon and asking him for a job. He says that Mr. Brink sent him. Mr. Moon is skeptical and not very encouraging. From their dialogue, viewers know that Claude isn’t looking for any ordinary business job, although he is dressed in his suit, tie, and shined shoes for this very different interview. He wants a high-paying job to buy a house, so Claude is definitely hard to pigeonhole. He aspires to be a contract killer because he wants the money to afford a middle-class life. As soon as Claude leaves, Mr. Moon calls Mr. Brink. They might be able to use him after all.

Claude completes his initial assignments successfully, and Mr. Brink sends Claude to Los Angeles to kill a witness in a federal trial. Two men, George and Marc, pick him up at the train station. The shot of George and Marc waiting for Claude at the train station is very strange because of the rear projection. It creates the sensation that they are parked on the tracks. And this odd use of rear projection is unfortunately consistent throughout the film. Maybe it worked in 1958, but I found it very distracting. It stood out, perhaps, because everything else about the film is so finely tuned.

And so is Claude. He wants to take his time and conduct some research before he kills his mark. Before he gets to the particulars of the contract hit, George and Marc take (or Claude takes George and Marc) swimming; deep-sea fishing; and to the zoo, the driving range, and the movies. At the movies, Claude slips out of the theater while Marc is preoccupied with the film and George is asleep in his seat. George and Marc return to the hotel room without Claude and discuss what to do next. They finally decide to go looking for him, and when they open the door to the hotel room, Claude is standing on the other side of the threshold. Claude tells them that he tailed them so that he could be sure that no one was tailing any of them.

Claude refuses to allow emotion to enter into his work. He is a professional, and he is good at what he does. He tells Marc and George: “The only type of killing that’s safe is when a stranger kills a stranger. No motive. Nothing to link the victim to the executioner. Now why would a stranger kill a stranger? Because somebody’s willing to pay. It’s business. Same as any other business. You murder the competition. Instead of price cutting, throat cutting. Same thing.” Claude doesn’t care about conscience, religion, family, punishment. He is frightening because he makes a lot of sense on some level. The difference between what he does and what businesspeople do is a very fine line. The risk in his work is high, but the profit is high. He has trained himself well, and he is very convincing. Before long, he is literally in the driver’s seat: George and Marc are letting him drive their car.

Four days before the trial, Claude agrees to see the hit. He learns then that it is a woman. He knew that her name was Billy Williams, but he assumed that it was a man’s name. For the first time in the film, viewers see that Claude is ruffled. He tells Marc and George: “I don’t like women. They don’t stand still. When they move, it’s hard to figure out why or wherefore. They’re not dependable. It’s tough to kill somebody who’s not dependable. I’ll do it, but I want more money.”

Once Claude agrees to the new contract, he is just as meticulous as he was from the start. He tries to learn about Billie’s habits. He learns from her former maid that Billie reads the newspaper in the morning, watches television all day, and plays the piano. She is too afraid to do anything else while she is being guarded by FBI agents. He uses this information to devise his murder plans.

(This blog post about Murder by Contract contains all the spoilers.)

Murder by Contract is a perfect example of why I always say that film noir shows viewers exactly what not to do. The two handlers, George and Marc, want Claude to do what he agreed to do and move on, but Claude is meticulous and wants to do the job right. Against their better instincts, George and Marc let Claude take his time. Before too long, George starts to appreciate Claude’s technique and his sense of humor. Marc grudgingly agrees, but he still raises objections here and there. He still worries that the murder won’t be done before the witness has a chance to testify, but he is the only one. Viewers come to appreciate the camaraderie between Claude, George, and Marc, too. Their banter provides some genuinely funny moments. And then there’s that guitar score that has been used from the opening scene and credits. It is pleasant, whimsical, but it also emphasizes some of Claude’s most gruesome work. It’s another detail that seems to lull viewers into thinking that everything will be okay after all, although nothing is okay for Claude’s victims.

And that’s how the spell, for lack of a better word, is created. No one else enters Claude, George, and Marc’s small circle. If supporting actors appear at all, they aren’t on-screen for very long. They rarely even speak. Instead, the kicky guitar music is heard on the soundtrack, or Claude, George, or Marc are heard speaking whether or not they are in the shot. All three main characters and the viewers are drawn into the small circle.

Everything is meticulously planned and carried out. Claude sees to it. But none of the characters account for fate, coincidence, the long arm of the law, and Claude’s own superstitions (he isn’t the perfect killing machine after all). As soon as the rest of the world intrudes on the criminals’ small circle, their plans blow up in their faces. None of the three main characters survives. I was pretty sure that Claude wouldn’t make it to the closing credits alive, but I have to admit I was surprised that George and Marc didn’t.

And maybe that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t enjoy Murder by Contract as much as I thought I would. From a technical perspective, everything worked to perfection. But all that precision and character bonding led only to justice being served in a very violent way. Claude, George, and Marc may have been enjoying themselves, but I grew tired of all that planning and energy expended with nothing more than murder and money as the endgame. Claude’s misogyny grated on me, too. He may have found it difficult to kill a woman, but he is the man for the job of terrorizing her until she wishes she were dead. Murder for Contract is only about eighty minutes long, but it’s a long time to spend with a man like Claude.

City of Fear (1959)

February 1959 release date (1958 copyright date)

Directed by Irving Lerner

Screenplay by Robert Dillon, Steven Ritch

Music by Jerry Goldsmith

Edited by Robert Lawrence

Cinematography by Lucien Ballard

Vince Edwards as Vince Ryker

Lyle Talbot as Chief Jensen

John Archer as Lt. Mark Richards

Steven Ritch as Dr. John Wallace

Patricia Blair as June Marlowe

Kelly Thordsen as Detective Sgt. Hank Johnson

Joseph Mell as Eddie Crown

Sherwood Price as Pete Hallon

Kathie (“Cathy”) Browne as Jeannie

Tony Lawrence as the sailor

Jean Harvey as the motel operator

Michael Mark as the restaurant proprietor

Distributed by Columbia Pictures Corporation

It has happened again. I have seen another film noir with a contemporary theme: fear of nuclear radiation and radiation poisoning. The current buildup of tensions with North Korea—and perhaps now Russia—have many in the United States worried about the possibility of nuclear attack and looking forward to the planned summit between North Korea and the United States. City of Fear plays on a similar theme in 1959 in the post–World War II world, when the United States was locked in a cold war and U.S. citizens feared nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. (If you are an ex-Russian spy today, you might also be worried about nerve agent attacks.)

The other two films noir with contemporary themes that I have seen recently are The Glass Wall (immigration and refugees) and The Killer That Stalked New York (disease epidemic). Click on each film title to see my separate posts on each film.

City of Fear starts with progressive, frenetic music, complete with (dare I say it!) beatnik-style bongos. An ambulance travels down a country road, with day-for-night photography. Two men are in the front seat. The man in the passenger seat complains of being sick. Vince Ryker (played by Vince Edwards) is the driver. The two men are escaping from prison, which becomes clear a bit later. Viewers learn that Vince has killed someone with a knife. The two men in the ambulance argue because the man in the passenger is getting sicker and sicker. During the course of their argument, the man in the passenger seat is killed accidently by Vince. Vince decides to pull over another car using the ambulance’s siren. The last shot before the film cuts to the credits is of Vince leaning into the driver’s side window.

After the credits, Vince Ryker is driving the car that he pulled over and he has assumed the car owner’s identity. He has no trouble answering all the police officer’s questions when he is stopped at a police roadblock. Vince is desperate to get away for several reasons: murder, prison escape, and the metal canister in his possession. He believes that it contains heroin and is thus his ticket to freedom. (How he managed to obtain a canister of heroin is a detail that I cannot remember right now, but I’ll just have to see City of Fear again.)

The film cuts to a scene in a police department with men talking about another man having the lives of 3 million people in his hands. The three men are Lieutenant Mark Richards, Chief Jensen, and Detective Sargent Hank Johnson. A fourth man, Dr. John Wallace, comes to see Lieutenant Mark Richards. The doctor explains to the lieutenant that Vince doesn’t have a container of heroin, as Vince believes. He has a container of cobalt-60 in granular form. It is a radioactive substance. Within eighty-four hours of contamination via contact with such a substance, a person is dead. The container is not made of lead, which would have provided protection; it is made of steel, which is porous for cobalt-60. The symptoms described by Dr. Wallace in City of Fear match pretty closely the symptoms described by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although the script emphasizes the visual symptoms that are easiest for an actor to portray on film.

For more information about cobalt-60, click on each of the following list items:

◊ Wikipedia

◊ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States

(This blog post about City of Fear contains spoilers.)

The film juxtaposes the desperate hunt for Vince and Vince’s attempts to profit from what he thinks is valuable heroin. June Marlowe, Vince’s girlfriend, meets him at the motel where he is staying after his prison escape. It’s not clear why June is attracted to Vince. She doesn’t seem to have any clear goals of her own, except to be with Vince (and it was probably perfectly acceptable to have only this one goal in 1959). Here is part of their conversation:

• Vince: “What do you think I am, some kind of animal or something? Don’t you think I know what’s good in life and what’s bad? I know what’s good. So do you, and you want it as bad as I do.”

• June: “Whatever you say, Vince.”

• Vince: “I’m not an animal. I’m a person. I want things, especially you.”

Viewers know that Vince is a killer, that he probably defines good and bad differently than a lot of people, and that he defines them both in terms of money and wealth. His girlfriend June is also a “thing” that he wants. But none of these details seem to bother June in the least. She remains loyal to Vince until radiation sickness, contracted through her own exposure to the canister that Vince carries around with him and to Vince himself, finally convinces her that her own life is now at stake.

The ending is very much of its period and makes the film seem a bit more dated than it would ordinarily. Today, Ryker’s body and the canister would be cordoned off, and no one without a hazmat suit would be able to get close to him! But the desperation for financial freedom and for a life without fear will always be relevant, I believe, and that relevancy is what fascinates me about City of Fear and film noir in general.