Ads for this late film noir proclaimed it "Hot with the blast of gunfire!" while the trailer suggested it could be the dictionary example for "suspense." Both claims are pretty accurate as this little gem proves to be one of the most powerful, if least known entries in the genre. Leslie Nielsen stars as an out-of-work newspaperman who cuts his honeymoon short to cover a series of small-town bank robberies. He thinks he can use the case to land a good job, but when he arrives in the town where the gang members live, he discovers a wall of silence. Most of the locals actually look up to the leader (Robert Wilke), a latter-day Robin Hood using his ill-gotten gains to keep the town running. The film was co-written by Morton S. Fine and director David Friedkin, a popular writing team from radio and television breaking into filmmaking for the first time (they would go on to write the screenplay for the 1965 classic The Pawnbroker). They lucked out in the casting department, with solid character actors like Wilke, Edward Andrews and Jay C. Flippen giving the film some dramatic heft. They also landed Andre Previn to create the powerful, jazz-tinged score.

By Frank Miller