The Sniper

Noir Alley host Eddie Muller’s introduction and comments following The Sniper, 1952.

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Journalistic and inflammatory, the dramatized quasi-factual prologue, and the introduction of Arthur Franz as the title character, in producer Stanley Kramer and director Edward Dmytryk’s first collaboration, The Sniper, 1952, also starring Adolphe Menjou and Richard Kiley, shot largely in San Francisco.

Kind of chance meeting at San Francisco Chinese joint, cop Kafka (Adolphe Menjou) meets getting-jaded criminologist Kent (Richard Kiley) who holds forth what we already know is spot-on reasoning about the thus-far unsuspected perp, in director Edward Dmytryk’s The Sniper, 1952.

Digging into the psycho material now, Arthur Franz as Eddie (title character) seems to know he’s finding it too easy to get away with killing women with his rifle, makes a cry for help then goes after sexy May (Marlo Dwyer), whom he met the night of the first murder, in The Sniper, 1952.

Big set piece by director Edward Dmytryk, Ralph Peters the snarky cop at the podium as suspects John Pickard, Byron Foulger and Ralph Smiley are shredded, then Richard Kiley’s first scene as shrink Kent, discouraging chief cop Anderson (Frank Faylen) and Lt. Kafka (Adolphe Menjou) in The Sniper, 1952.

After burning himself on the stove in a bid for attention, and mostly failing, we join Eddie (Arthur Franz, title character) at work for the first time, a delivery man (working on location) in San Francisco, Marie Windsor his benevolent and alluring customer, in Edward Dmytryk’s The Sniper, 1952.

Second appearance for Adolphe Menjou as Lt. Kafka and Gerald Mohr as Sgt. Ferris, after the crime scene, now at the home of the victim, terse chat even as the perp Eddie (Arthur Franz) calculates whether he should deliver the cleaning for the gal he murdered, in The Sniper, 1952, shot on location around Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, Paul Marion the debriefed boyfriend.

Continuing the initial solo scenes profiling the title character, Arthur Franz as troubled Eddie, whom we’ve seen taking aim at strange women with his rifle, cruising his neighborhood, Danni Sue Nolan the cashier at the soda shop, in The Sniper, 1952, from Harry Brown’s script and story by Edna & Edward Anhalt.