GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

kidboots Detective Barney Nolan's (Edmond O'Brien) name is a by word at the local police station for corruption and brutality. As Captain Gunnerson lists the shootings linked to Barney over the years, shootings that he always had an alibi for, a call comes through that a bookie has been shot in the back, down a deserted alley - and Barney has already put himself in the clear. This is a tension filled movie with the crime and O'Brien's character established before the opening credits. O'Brien also directed and is at pains to show that once, long ago, he was a caring cop. There is a scene involving a juvenile delinquent who is brought to the station belligerent and taciturn - he is turned over to Barney and within minutes he has delved into just what makes the boy tick. With just a few sentences he has shown that he once felt he could make a difference. There are little touches like this all through the film. Barney's "I want to make a difference" cop has been corrupted by the filth around him. Carolyn Jones is a stand out in the small role of a blonde lush who picks up Barney in a bar. She is just terrific, especially her "I'll show you how to look tough" speech but Barney's demeanour throughout the scene suggests "this is why I am what I am".Barney's real girl friend is Elizabeth Taylor clone Marla English who as Patty Winters finds a job as a cigarette girl - Barney doesn't like her parading herself but as she says "How am I ever going to keep a job if you keep beating up my bosses"!!! The murder victim is also missing $25,000 and it is for Patty that Barney has stolen it. In Barney's idea of the American dream - money equates to normality, and having a perfect little wife to go with the perfect house, and his eagerness as he shows Patty around the fully furnished project home is almost sad. But... also in the back yard is a perfect hiding place for the money which is the icing on the cake!! Hot on Barney's tail is Detective Mark Brewster (John Agar) once Barney's protégé but now, as the movie draws to it's conclusion, keen to bring the rogue cop to justice.The movie definitely has it's fair share of violence - a particularly brutal scene in a night club where two men corner him and the violence in which he pistol whips them has the patrons screaming in terror. There is also a witness to the original murder - a deaf mute (David Hughes) who is keen to write down all he knows about the crime to any policeman who will listen but unfortunately the station sends Barney!!! Apart from a few preachy speeches and an obvious "gaffe" where a boon microphone shadow shows up on a white wall this is a terrific film with marvellous location shooting, including a climatic shoot out at a local swimming baths.

LeonLouisRicci By 1954 Film-Noir was starting to show signs of transforming to a style that had more to do with the sociological and less to do with the psychological. Although the bad cop here definitely has had a psychotic break, the film is concerned more with the external ramifications and less with the internal intent and motivation.A crisp looking and sometimes brutal Police Story finds that dangling the man's "Castle" in front of him may not always be enough to entice some to play by the rules. It seems that even nine years on the force has not paid enough to comfortably attain the American Dream. Even his lady friend seeks employment as a leggy cigarette girl to pay the bills.There may be one too many lines reassuring us that this type of cop is really an anomaly, and when we do find one we will tell all and call in the press (yeah right). But aside from this and a preachy reporter (we know he's a righteous man because he smokes a pipe) this is quite a good hard-boiled thriller with noble intent.

sol ***SPOILERS*** In a role that very possibly inspired the "Psycho Cop" series of movies of the 1990's Edmond O'Brian as the sweaty disheveled and bug eyed LA police detective Barney Noland is about as rotten and barbaric as any film or TV policemen ever seen up to that time. Murdering without conscience Barney not only guns down an innocent bookie, Kirk Martin,to grab his $25,000.00 bankroll he's given by his boss Packy Reed, Hugh Sanders, but murders by wringing his neck and throwing him down a flight of stairs deaf mute Ernest Sternmuller,David Hughes. That's in that Sternmuller is the one person who can identify Barney in Martin's murder.Working his way up in the LAPD as a Let. Detective the pay, about $100,00 a week, wasn't enough for Barney's future plans to marry 20 year old, some 20 years Barney junior, cigarette girl Patty Winters, Maria English and get a house out in the suburbs. So when Barney got a tip that Martin was loaded with cash he jumped at it not caring what the consequences were going to be. It was Barney's good friend at the LAPD Detective Sgt. Mark Brewster, John Agar, who by getting to the bottom, of the stairs, of deaf mute Sternmuller's death who figured out that his good friend and mentor Barney Noland murdered him! As well as him being the person who murdered bookie Kirk Martin!Barney also takes time to brutally pistol whip private detectives Fats Michaels & Laddie O'Neil, Claud Akins & Lawrence Ryle, who were hired by Mob Boss Packy Reed to checkup on him at a local spaghetti joint where he picked up boozy Carolyn Jones, wearing a blond wig, for a date. In the end it was Fats, with his head bandaged like Lon Cheney Jr in the "Mummy's Curse", who tried to murder Barney at a local YMCA where he was suppose to get the tickets and ready cash from mobster Mannings, Michael H. Cutting, for him & Patty to check out of the country to South America.***SPOILERS*** Now on the run from both the law and the mob Barney is finally gunned down in a hail of bullets by the LA police lead by his good friend Det. Sgt. Breswter in front of the house that he hoped to buy with his ill gotten gains, the $25,000.00 in bookie money, for him and Patty to spend the rest of their lives living in. It's a shame that Edmond O'Brian wasn't given more psycho type roles like the one in "Shield for Murder" in him being so good in playing one. By then I would guess he was far too old and chubby to be convincing in playing psychos leaving them up to younger actors like Anthony Perkins to get to be cast in them.

David (Handlinghandel) Antihero star/director O'Brien does a good job. He plays a real beast -- a crooked cop who will do the lowest of the low.Marla English, as his girlfriend, is pretty and eefftive enough. She looks a lot like Elizabeth Taylor at that time.It's unusually brutal for its time but not espcially good.