the audience applauded

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Years have past since Detective Sam Wagner(Joseph Cotton)brought bank robber Leon 'Foggy' Poole(Wendell Corey)to justice and in the crossfire accidentally killed the crook's wife. When the once mild mannered convict escapes jail, he is crazed with just one thing on his mind and it is to get revenge by killing Wagner's wife Lila(Rhonda Fleming). The cops want 'Foggy' back behind bars and the idea comes up to use the beautiful Lila as bait. Wagner is not happy with the situation and is stressed with protecting his wife.Corey is at his best in this role. Fleming proves her acting abilities in this Film-Noir. The usual stoic Cotton actually has emotions. The supporting cast includes: Alan Hale Jr., John Larch, John Beradino, Dee J. Thompson, Michael Pate and Don Beddoe.

Wendell Corey is perfectly cast as the personality absent loan shark clerk who botches a robbery that ends up with police officer Joseph Cotten accidentally killing his wife. On his way to prison, Corey looks Cotten's wife (Rhonda Fleming) right in the eye and promises he will venge his own wife's death. Three years go by and Corey in prison is made a trustee, thus engineering his escape. The bodies pile up as Cotten learns that Corey has vowed to kill Fleming (an eye for an eye) and tries to prevent his frustrated spouse from becoming Corey's next victim.Going down the territory of some earlier crime dramas and film noirs (there is a difference), this bottom of the bill feature is a gritty and non-pretentious view of the desperate hours after Corey's goals are revealed. There doesn't seem to be any way out but a predictable conclusion, but that really doesn't matter. As in the similar "B" sleeper "The Night Holds Terror", this film takes some interesting twists and turns, provides some real chills as potential victims of Corey's insanity show genuine fear. Having been beyond miscast as the romantic lead in such films as "The File on Thelma Jordan", "The Furies" and "Harriet Craig", the usually bland Corey shows more dimension here as a psychopathic nut job than in those dramatic potboilers which paired him opposite Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford. A svelte Alan Hale Jr. ("Gilligan's Island") and a young John Beradino ("General Hospital's" long-time patriarch, Dr. Steve Hardy) are instantly recognizable as Cotten's co-workers.This is a must for lovers of gritty crime drama and rises above what could easily have been an hour long episode of a 50's TV cop show.

A bank robber escapes from prison and seeks out the cop who sent him up. Boetticher made this just before making his mark with a series of fine Westerns starring Randolph Scott. He really found his calling in Westerns, making only one non-Western after this one. He does OK in this short crime drama, but can't overcome the mediocre script. Cotten is earnest as the cop. Corey is effective as the disturbed, cold-blooded killer who targets Fleming, Cotten's wife, because the latter accidentally killed Corey's wife. Also playing cops are Hale (Skipper of "Gilligan's Island") and Beradino (long-time star of soap "General Hospital").

Respected western auteur Budd Boetticher is woefully out of place with this choppy modern day cops and robbers story that suffers from a strong lack of emotional believability. Boetticher seems to have waived rehearsal time and settled for the first take as leads Joe Cotton and Rhonda Fleming put little effort into their roles, delivering lines flatly and without energy. Mild mannered employee Leon "Foggy" Poole works as an inside man on a bank job that goes bad and gets his wife killed in the process. He escapes from prison and immediately sets out to kill the wife of the detective who killed his. Hundreds of cops are mobilized to keep him from getting to the home of the intended who has been moved to another location but wouldn't you know in the films final moments we have Foggy trailing feet behind the victim (who thought somehow that taking a bus back to the house was a sound move) while a company of cops observe and bicker over what action to take. Sound preposterous? You should see it. It's all of that and more. Lucien Ballard's camera work does a decent job of bringing noir to the suburbs but the editing is lackadaisical and shapeless and it drains the film of its suspense and pace. As Poole, Wendell Corey is the best thing in the film managing to evoke great sympathy as he transitions from gentle soul to murderer. These attributes aside Killer uniformly fails in construction and execution making its message clear. Go Western old Budd.