Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

gullwing592003 I've been on a film noir fix lately & finding these flicks on You Tube such as Private Hell 36, Crime Of Passion, The Killer Is Loose, Please Murder Me, Raw Deal, Black Angel etc. Most of these I enjoyed & I've watched them once but when I stumbled onto this one yesterday I watched it again today as it was a little more than what I expected. Follow Me Quietly is not really a film noir it's a crime drama & police procedural.It's a bit experimental & unusual which makes it stand out from the others, the late 40's post war period was a time when filmmakers were trying out new gimmicks such as subjective first person camera like Lady In The Lake (1946) & Dark Passage (1947). The police create a dummy of the killer from what evidence & clues they have which is a little more than the usual routine bulletin description of a suspect.Sometimes a person can be identified & recognized by the back of their head & ears & the size & shape of their body & physique. Since the police have never seen the killers face the dummy is faceless & startling. The scene where the killer replaces the dummy & sits in William Lundigan's office facing the window with it's back to him is clever but pointless & foolish. What if the detective was smart enough to notice it was really him ? Why would the killer take such a risk ? I think it was just a gimmick & for cinematic effect to satisfy the filmmakers & to give the audience a thrill. The silly trick worked & fooled me I thought it was the faceless dummy.And when the killers face is revealed he's not what you expect, he's very insecure & nervous & seems incapable of doing anything right. How did he manage to kill 8 victims & get away with it ? The ending is similar to White Heat & this film isn't great but it's fun & interesting, different & memorable & worth watching. I've seen it twice & I may watch it again.

Ray Faiola This picture is such an oddity it left me scratching my heads for many minutes after I ran it. Okay, it's a Schlom production, so it's from the B unit. Lundigan is certainly a capable lead in these second features but FOLLOW ME QUIETLY required a bit more gravitas for the Lt. I suspect this might originally have been mapped out for Sid Rogell's graduated unit and then sent down the line. The ingenious machinations with the dummy; the anxiety provoked that the Lt. might actually be the killer; and the elaborate location chase all have the earmarks of something that Robert Ryan would have starred in for Rogell and Ted Tetzlaf. Then there's the red herring of Leonid Raab as the credited composer. Paul Sawtell did the action cues and Raab was not on staff at RKO. In fact, he was primarily an orchestrator (long time) for Franz Waxman. I didn't want to run the projector back when I screened my print but I'm pretty sure that Herman Schlom's name was on the cover of the detective magazine they find at Paul Guilfoyle's house (his wife the murder victim). Finally, having Edwin Max turn out to be a rather slovenly killer after he is built up as wily (taking the dummy's place at headquarters) and personable (according to the waitress and landlord), he simply doesn't fit the portrait painted of The Judge. Nor does he seem fanatical as an avenging angel would be. He looks more like a fellow in a perpetual drunken stupor. Where was Paul Stewart when we needed him! Anyway, the whole thing looks like a great kernel of an idea taken in the wrong direction by the wrong personnel. Still, it's unique enough to be enjoyable.

Michael_Elliott Follow Me Quietly (1949) *** (out of 4) Exciting film noir from RKO has a detective (William Lundigan) trying to track down a mysterious killer known as "The Judge". I haven't heard too many film noir lovers mention this film but I found it to be very tense and brilliantly directed. The film only runs 59-minutes but there's a lot of style throughout each one of them. The ending is full of action and some nice suspense. The film runs at a very fast pace and is over before you know it but for the life of me I can't figure out why this film isn't talked about more. Certainly worth checking out if you can catch it on TCM.

dougdoepke Atmospheric 60 minutes from that terrific production unit at RKO of the 1940's. Cops are after a psycho-killer who calls himself The Judge and has set out to rid the world of evil. Unusually fine support from Paul Guilfoyle as the bereaved husband and Douglas Spencer as the bogus culprit. Even bland pretty-boy Bill Lundigan is convincing in the lead as the obsessed cop, along with sarcastic sidekick, the hawk-nosed Jeff Corey. I didn't even wince at the budding romance between Lundigan and reporter Dorothy Patrick since it too is well handled. (The scene in Lundigan's apartment with Patrick is actually quite suggestive for the time.)Director Richard Fleischer gets the most out of the material with a number of nice touches. Note how he has a masher block Patrick's entry into the cafe at movie's start, or how cafe cashier Nestor Paiva is sketched in as a colorful racing tout. It's minor details like these that help distinguish a memorable B-movie from a forgettable one. And of course there's that really imaginative piece of staging with the dummy in Lundigan's office. I doubt any audience, then or now, has failed to react to that clever jolt. That scene along with other grotesqueries (the police grilling) made me think that stylish director Anthony Mann had more to do with the production than a mere co-writing credit. My one reservation is with the climax. Yes, the chase is exciting, and using the water from the punctured pipes to trigger The Judge's psychopathic fear is another imaginative touch. However, the story has built up the mystery aspect, along with the madman's bizarre beliefs. In my book, that requires the climax come at night, in the dark, with only a last minute revelation of the character's identity. Frankly, I was disappointed to see the Judge revealed in broad daylight as familiar character actor Edwin Max. To me, that aspect does not measure up to the impressive build-up nor to the inventiveness of the rest of the movie. My guess is that Mann influenced the noirish scenes, while Fleischer was the lone hand in the chase finale.Be that as it may, Fleischer and Co. show again how much style and imagination can accomplish, even on a shoestring budget.