The archetype of the talented but undisciplined student bristling under the guiding hand of his wiser, more experienced teacher extends beyond the purview of cinema but has made for some entertaining films - from William Keighley's "G" Men (1935) to Taylor Hackford's An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and beyond. In MGM's police drama Code Two (1953), directed by Fred M. Wilcox (Forbidden Planet [1956]), Ralph Meeker plays an LAPD cadet too eager for action to suit commanding officer Keenan Wynn, who knows he must break the boy to make the man. Influenced by Jack Webb's seminal procedural Dragnet (which debuted on radio in 1951 and on television the following year) and scripted by Marcel Klauber (better known as a composer, and for penning the lyrics to "Sweet Georgia Brown"), Code Two makes most of the expected stops (sensitive family man Robert Horton all but has a target drawn on his back) along the way to its bullet-riddled conclusion but throws in enough curves to keep the ride thrilling. Meeker's brash beginner is a pencil sketch for his steely performance as Mike Hammer in Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and the supporting cast is rich in familiar faces, among them Chuck Connors, Robert Foulk, veteran stuntmen Carey Loftin and Gil Perkins, and William Campbell, as a cop-killer who trades punches with Meeker over a vat of boiling quicklime.

By Richard Harland Smith