A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Calling this movie a noir is drawing a long bow in my opinion but it is a terrific little movie whose compact length keeps it tight and exciting. Gig Young, one of the few "name" stars in this movie, was excellent as a young public attorney, Bennett, who, along with his father, a retired policeman, proceeds to hunt the man (or woman) down as he tries to unravel an eight year old murder mystery.Bill Jackson (James Anderson) a dishwasher at a local bar thwarts a robbery and reluctantly finds himself a hero with his picture in the papers. He has good reason to be reluctant - eight years before, as Richard Kincaid, he escaped from police custody where he was being held for murder. When he is re-arrested he still maintains his innocence and his story of a chance meeting with a group of friends at a bar has a ring of truth. Bennett believes him and attempts to track down the 7 people with varying results. Mr. Popularity (John Kellogg) has turned into a hopeless alcoholic, his adoring wife (Mary Anderson) is still adoring but finds it safer to lead a new life under a different name. The college athlete (Willard Parker) has returned from the war a blinded veteran and is now a book binder and his girl (Cleo Moore) has died - or so he has been told!!! The last couple, the quiet ones - she has moved away and Walter (Gerald Mohr) is now wealthy and his present wife was the young wife of the murdered man. Kincaid was accused by the man of having an affair with his wife and he then hastily left the party before the murder took place.I admit there was a bit of a problem keeping track of who was who. For a start they all actually looked as though they had aged 8 years and because none of the actors and actresses ever became household names it was hard to tell them apart. There were exceptions - Gerald Mohr's resemblance to Humphrey Bogart helped him become a familiar face in 1950s movies and TV, he always played the slick shyster. Cleo Moore started her career as a blonde bombshell in several of the Joe MacDoakes shorts and for a while, in the 50s, had the dubious honour of being Hugo Haas' muse in movies like "Bait", "One Girl's Confession" etc. And if that is not the notorious Lila Leeds as one of the prison visitors, I'll eat my hat!!!

This RKO release is typical of the routine second-feature fare that TV would soon replace. It's a pretty pedestrian account of an innocent man (Anderson) being cleared of a murder charge by his Public Defender. There's quite a number of suspects, at the same time, the script muddles them in confusing fashion that takes away the guessing game. Young more or less walks through the undemanding role of attorney-defender, while the usually villainous Anderson gets a rare shot at a sympathetic role. Anderson is a familiar face from that era, especially from the popular Dragnet series. He's one of those unheralded actors with a strong presence that could spice up the dullest screenplay. Catch the early bar scene where he shows his trademark moody snarl, otherwise he's pretty much wasted. There's one scene, the "moment of truth" in the courtroom, where director Archainbaud rises above the script with a dollying shot of the unhinged Rolene (Balenda). It's a sudden, chilling camera move, and Balenda does well with the histrionics. Otherwise, this is the sort law and order melodrama that would soon be done on, say, Mr. District Attorney (1954).

The main shortcoming of Hunt The Man Down is that it's too short. It tells the attempt to exonerate a man of a crime committed a dozen years earlier, half a dozen eye-witnesses to which have long since scattered. That's a lot a backstory to cram into a scant 68 minutes – programmer length – when the plot to unfurl is almost as complicated as The Killing or Out of the Past. Despite some nicely observed detail, ranging from Los Angeles' Skid Row to Beverly Hills estates where maids stand by swimming pools with towels on their arm, the many characters don't get their due – Hunt The Man Down becomes less complex than confusing.James Anderson, working as a dishwasher in a bar that's held up after hours, shoots and kills the intruder; in the resultant publicity, he's spotted as the man who went on the lam before being sentenced for murder some years before. It falls to the public defender (Gig Young) to prove his innocence. With the help of his father, a one-armed retired cop (Harry Shannon), he tries to locate the guests at the impromptu drinking party in 1938 which (as such shindigs so often do) ended in the violent death of one of the merry-makers. He finds the original witnesses elusive, dissembling, deranged or dead. He also finds that, once a habit for homicide takes hold, it's hard to break....Though Young looks, well, young, he was 37 at the time, with close to two dozen movies behind him. He's still far and away the best-known member of the cast, with the exception of Iris Adrian (as a streel) and Cleo Moore (who shows up for the concluding courtroom scene in a knock-‘em-dead black number, topped off by the sort of hat worn only by floozies in witness boxes). The movie could have used more of her, and of Adrian. For that matter, it could have used more of just about everything.

Low-budget murder mystery about a Public Defender trying to clear his client of a murder the man had been convicted of 12 years previously. Complicating things is the fact that he escaped custody after his conviction, but the PD believes the man to be innocent of the murder and works to find the real killer. Gig Young as the PD is okay, and James Anderson as the convicted killer is actually pretty good, but the picture as a whole just rambles along with little suspense, and despite some good character actors in the cast, the performances are generally below par. Director George Archainbaud was apparently more at home making westerns--he was churning out Gene Autry's TV series at Columbia at around this time--but even if he had tried to inject any liveliness into this picture, the hack script would have defeated his attempts. Average at best, the film climaxes with a courtroom scene that's straight out of an episode of "Perry Mason" and is just as predictable.