Late-cycle noir introduces us to Leon ‘Foggy’ Poole, a new kind of polite psychotic menace who kills because, ‘sigh,’ people just don’t give him a choice. Wendell Corey is a fugitive seeking revenge against cop Joseph Cotten … and determined to take ‘a wife for a wife’ justice. Rhonda Fleming and Michael Pate co-star in this very modern chain-of-violence tale; director Budd Boetticher and ace cameraman Lucien Ballard turn a modest production into an efficient and frequently stylish crime thriller.

The Killer Is Loose
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 73 min. / Street Date December 31, 2025 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale Jr., Michael Pate, John Larch, Dee J. Thompson, Virginia Christine, Don Beddoe, Lawrence Dobkin, Frank Gerstle, Stafford Repp, Arthur Space.
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Art Director: A. Leslie Thomas
Costumes: William Sarris
Film Editor: George Gittens
Original Music: Lionel Newman
Screenplay by Harold Medford story by John & Ward Hawkins
Produced by Robert L. Jacks
Directed by Budd Boetticher

Noir fans have a soft spot for The Killer Is Loose, a mid-fifties noir smartly directed by Budd Boetticher, who overcomes a modest budget and some less-than-ideal casting. The show is a must-see thanks to a sensational performance by Wendell Corey, whose murderous character is a big step forward in the development of cinematic psychos. Pop psychology had elbowed its way into screen thrillers in earlier decades, but few twisted villains exhibited realistic mental issues. Anyone labeled as insane instead displayed easily identifiable crazy behaviors — verbal quirks, nervous tics, aberrant habits. Norman Bates would soon redefine ‘homicidal maniac’ for an entire generation. But preceding him on the screen were a few other deranged killers that also behaved ‘just like normal people.’ Today’s public is still bothered by killers without instantaneously explainable motivations. We continue to be given pat explanations for crimes often committed just for their own sake.

The company United Artists came to dominate the film industry by offering independent producers a solid distribution network, with funding depending on the attractiveness of the deal. Producer  Stanley Kramer, star-turned-producer  Burt Lancaster and director-turned-producer  Robert Aldrich had arrangements with UA, turning out stellar ‘A’ pictures. UA also fronted money for much cheaper fare, 70-minute program pictures by dependable producers like  Edward Small. The studio was noted for taking risks on producers and directors with projects other studios might deem un-commercial:  Samuel Fuller,  Charles Laughton,  Alexander Singer. Stanley Kubrick got his start with a UA pickup of a tiny independent productions.

Somewhere in the middle were deals pitched by experienced talent cut loose from studio payrolls. The Killer Is Loose was put together by former 20th-Century Fox producer Robert L. Jacks, who also was Darryl F. Zanuck’s son-in-law. The stars Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming and Wendell Corey were  still household names, but no longer considered bankable marquee bait. To direct came Budd Boetticher, a talented maker of mostly moderate-performing action fare. Boetticher had wound up a Universal contract and was looking for a feature assignment that would stave off a retreat to TV work. Working in the new medium was the last stop for many veteran Hollywood directors.

The non-stellar crime revenge story The Killer Is Loose became a mid-range UA release, sold on the basis of its cast and its hard-edged story. Its poster tagline promises something shocking:

The show only partly delivers on that tease, as too much of the story focuses on the home life issues of a career detective. But Wendell Corey’s unique villain runs away with the show. He’s absolutely nuts yet is the most charismatic person we see.

At a Savings & Loan (at Pico and Roxbury in Los Angeles) teller Leon ‘Foggy’ Poole (Wendell Corey) intercedes in a robbery and gets clubbed over the head for his trouble. A few hours later, LAPD Detective Sam Wagner (Joseph Cotten) realizes that Poole was the inside man on the job. When the police show up Poole immediately starts shooting. Sam bursts through a door and fires in the darkened room, killing Poole’s innocent wife Doris (Martha Crawford). Poole is sentenced to ten years for his crimes. Two years of model behavior earn him a transfer to an honor farm, where he immediately busts out and commences a killing spree. The entire force goes on alert, as Poole swore to retaliate against Sam through his wife Lila (Rhonda Fleming). Lila has never accepted her husband’s profession, so much so that Sam doesn’t tell her that she’s presently the target of a homicidal maniac. He instead finds an excuse for Lila to stay with friends. Just as the cops are baiting a trap for Poole, Lila realizes what’s going on and rushes home to be with her husband….

The great Budd Boetticher is known first and foremost for his superior westerns, but his early filmography includes adventure stories, low-budget noirs and several features about his enduring love of bullfighting, as best seen in the superb  Bullfighter and the Lady. His The Killer Is Loose has almost enough production value to quality as an ‘A’ crime tale. Cameraman Lucien Ballard shoots exteriors with the no-frills docu-real approach that had supplanted the earlier, more expressionistic noir style. Locations include an honor farm somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, and a roadblock out in the semi-marshland near what is now Marina Del Rey.

Boetticher wasn’t given much time to film the picture. He and Ballard make the best of the situation by concentrating their resources on the film’s key scenes — important action episodes are blocked for maximum impact. Boetticher limited his camera angles and filmed many dialogue scenes in boxy studio sets. Almost half of the script is an only so-so romantic conflict, with detective Sam Wagner trying to shield his wife Lila from the realities of police work. Sam routinely lies to Lila, downplaying the day-to-day danger in his job. It’s a foolish habit that would make any spouse doubtful and suspicious. Lila doesn’t show a lot of faith in her husband’s judgment. She can’t be trusted to follow instructions even after she knows the score — she has to go running into harm’s way to lend hubby her emotional support. These aren’t fatal story points, but the Wagners are less sympathetic than they might have been..

The ‘Foggy Poole’ half of the story is inspired. Wendell Corey had recently made a positive impression in Hitchcock’s  Rear Window, and his superb Foggy Poole dominates this movie. The perpetually confused Poole got his nickname in the Army because of his poor vision. He’s a mentally confused fellow, that has decided that life has always underestimated him. Poole’s serene nature is entirely misleading, as his skewed inner logic makes him murderously unpredictable.  “What else could I have done?”  he says more than once, as if fate is giving him no choice but to kill. Foggy may be the original model for the ‘innocent’ psycho who sighs,

Prime responsibility indeed means nothing to Leon Poole. After helping to rob a bank he provokes a gunfight with the police at his apartment, with his wife present.  When she’s shot down he insists on blaming the cops, specifically Sam. Poole’s one-track logic can’t be reasoned with. He’s on the short list for parole but instead chooses to murder a guard, with a truly brutal improvised weapon. We wonder if actor Stanley Adams (Star Trek’s ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’) personally performed the unpleasant stunt, falling face first into an irrigation ditch. Poole then rushes back to town to carry out his vendetta against Sam and Lila. His most effective weapon is his harmless appearance.

The film’s best scene is a prime showcase of essential 1950s screen violence. Foggy invades the home of his former sergeant Otto Flanders (John Larch of  The Phenix City Story and  The Careless Years). Waiting for Otto, he terrorizes Flanders’ wife Grace (Dee. J. Thompson), turning her life into an instant nightmare. Otto attempts a psychological approach to calm the forlorn-looking Foggy, even though Poole has a large pistol leveled at his navel. Holding a bottle of milk as a distraction, Otto recalls the way Foggy was no match for his sergeant back in the South Pacific. Poole agrees that it would be easy for Otto to overpower him. The confrontation is like a poorly played poker hand in one of Boetticher’s  Ranown westerns — Otto’s reasoning steers Foggy into yet another awful ‘logical’ course of action. Director John Frankenheimer must have liked Boetticher’s inventive climax to this scene, because he duplicated it for a violent moment in his later  The Manchurian Candidate.  Every Body Needs Milk!

Once upon a time, America believed that ambitious crooks died ‘in the gutter’ like Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. The new American suburbs of the 1950s were considered safe and secure, reasonably immune from disorder and violence. But movies began to depict crime violence in neighborhoods suitable for Beaver Cleaver and family. The conclusion at the Wagners’ feels like an abbreviated replay of the previous year’s home invasion siege  The Desperate Hours, directed by William Wyler. The ‘crime comes home’ motif of  The Desperate Hours had also been seen in  Shield for Murder, and would later be repeated to memorable effect in Don Siegel’s remake of  The Killers and Burt Kennedy’s  The Money Trap. Each of those killers try to cheat their way into the American dream; a couple of them are just after a cozy home of their own. All they end up with is a patch of lawn to die on.

Although key material in The Killer Is Loose is nicely staged on real locations, the indoor police activity plays too much like the cheaper level of United Artists program pictures. The reliable actor Michael Pate carries the expositional duties w, but Alan Hale Jr. doesn’t impress as a rather dumb cop who flubs a phone tap.

Director Boetticher does what he can with the domestic drama between Sam and Lila Wagner, but the two stars are essentially miscast. Joseph Cotten is too long in the tooth to play an action-man detective. We don’t really buy Sam’s relationship with Rhonda Fleming’s Lila — married a little over two for years, she has yet to consider her husband’s profession as anything but an annoyance. Sam thinks he can baby her, when the realities of police work require a clear family understanding. If the Sam & Lila relationship were compelling, the show could have been a suspense classic. The film’s next best performance is that of the dependable Virginia Christine. As another cop’s wife, Ms. Christine gives Lila a sharp dressing-down over her lousy attitude. She also acts Ms. Fleming off the screen.

We tend to fault the screenplay for twisting the way characters assign blame for bad things that happen during the heat of a gunfight. Leon Poole has already shot a policeman, yet Wagner is supposed to take responsibility for the accidental shooting of the wife?  If she was so precious to Poole, why didn’t he surrender instead of provoking a guns-blazing assault on their apartment?  The movie insists on making Poole the misunderstood victim, the wronged party; it’s almost offensive when Detective Wagner apologizes to him during the arrest. At the trial, the judge also takes an apologetic tone, with a criminal whose outrageous actions have caused mayhem and terrorized a city. Poole has nobody to blame but himself.

The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Killer Is Loose follows up on a plain-wrap Blu released by ClassicFlix eight years ago. Kino’s Special Edition does not claim a new remaster; for all we know, it is the same widescreen transfer that ClassicFlix commissioned. In my quick comparison the new disc only looked a little brighter. We admire Lucien Ballard’s camerawork, which maintains the realism of real locations but slips in plenty of low-key noirish night work. Ballard takes pains to display Rhonda Fleming attractively. Noir fans based in Los Angeles will be scrutinizing street signs to identify the neighborhoods where scenes were filmed. The stretch of Pico Blvd. in the opening scene no longer has undeveloped lots, I can assure you.

Audio commentator Gary Gerani delivers another of his fast paced, cheerful tracks. He gives us capsule introductions for all the actors. He also explains, in little installments, the film’s production genesis. The Killer Is Loose was developed for color and CinemaScope at 20th-Fox three years before. It was eventually handed off to former Fox producer Robert L. Jacks. Gerani says that a second Fox project about a deranged killer also migrated from Fox to United Artists, Gerd Oswald’s  A Kiss Before Dying.

Like all KL Studio Classics discs, the show comes with a stack of trailers. The trailer for Loose is a textless copy meant to be overlaid with tag-line graphics, etc.. Don’t see it before the feature, as it is a spoiler-fest that gives away every one of the film’s violent scenes.

Wendell Corey enjoyed lowercase leading man status for several years in the late ’40s. Although his remarkable Foggy Poole became a favorite noir footnote, his career continued only to more supporting roles. Just a year later, he and Lizabeth Scott were stooging for Elvis Presley in Hal Wallis’s rock musical  Loving You.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Killer Is Loose
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Very Good +++
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Gary Gerani
Original (textless) trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: March 8, 2025
(7292loos)

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