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Sadly Over-hyped

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Shoot To Kill takes Luana Walters out of her usual western cowgirl outfits and puts her in modern dress as a woman with one incredible scheme that involves bringing down a crooked prosecutor. Doubly hard because prosecutor Edmund MacDonald is regarded as a hero with a bright future.MacDonald has brought down Robert Kent a big name hoodlum. But it was at the bidding of three others racketeers who frame Kent because they want him out of the way. Kent escapes and therein lies the tale.Walters who usually was the girl that any number of Saturday matinée cowboys would be vying for did a really good job as a woman on a mission. You'd hardly know this was the same woman as this is one hardboiled dame. Walters is aided and abetted by reporter Russell Wade who also has a big size torch for Walters. In fact the whole story is related in flashback by Walters to Wade and Wade sees for the first time how his role fit in the big picture. Shoot To Kill obviously had a different ending in mind when you see it. For whatever reason, Lippert Pictures chose the wrong one. It should have ended like Humphrey Bogart's classic The Big Shot. It really spoiled what could have been a minor noir classic. You'll see what I mean when you watch it.

SHOOT TO KILL is a nice paced crime drama that has Douglas Blackley playing a known gangster Dixie Logan who is framed by District Attorney Larry Dale(Edmund MacDonald). Logan's secret wife Marian Langdon(Susan Walters)takes a job assisting Dale in order to dig up proof corruption in the office and that Logan was framed. Helping Marian is ace reporter George Mitchell(Russell Wade)and not knowing her real situation falls in love with her. The story is being told by the pretty DA's assistant from her deathbed. Photography is top shelf and story does hold some suspense. A brief highlight is piano player Gene Rodgers playing the tunes "Ballad of the Bayou" and "Rajah's Blues". Supporting players include: Charles Trowbridge, Joe Devlin, Vince Barnett and Frank O'Connor.NOTE: Later Blackley changed his name to Robert Kent and Walters became Luana Walters.

It's a fact that over fifty percent of the films made prior to 1950 will never again be seen due to the deterioration of the film's negative, from nitrates or fire. God, how I wish "Shoot to Kill" was one of those films.I'm not going to go into what this movie was about, because with all of the flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks, you're going to grow tired of watching it, like I did, and not care.The acting is horrendous. Through the whole picture whenever Edmund MacDonald appeared, all I could think of was, "Murder! Murder at Midnight!"(fans of Abbott and Costello will know what I mean). It's sad to think that he was better in "Who Done It" than he was in this thing.Russell Wade showed his usual range of dull to bland. The highlight was when he was in the nightclub with Luana Walters, and the angle of the shot had a table light covering the bottom part of his face.Avoid at all cost.2 out of 10

I expected little from William Berke's 1947 Shoot To Kill. In fact, my expectations were so low, I left the DVD until late at night. I was just about to retire, but thought I'd take a quick look at the opening sequence. The movie hooked me straight away. Not only was Berke's direction way more polished than his norm, the movie was most atmospherically photographed by Benjamin Kline. Deft writing by Edwin V. Westrate also helped, and the actors were great too, especially Edmund MacDonald (who reminded me of a young Citizen Kane), heroine Luana Walters, reporter Russell Wade, gangster Robert Kent, the boogie-woogie piano player Gene Rodgers, and is-he-honest-or-is-he district attorney Charles Trowbridge (in noirish close-ups, giving the best performance of his lengthy career).