A prime example of limpid, compact low-budget ingenuity. Emotionless, college-educated hepcat Vince Edwards insinuates himself as a contract killer for an unseen Mr. Big and, after proving his efficiency with
a couple of clean rubouts, gets handed a major assignment -- offing a mob witness holed up behind a wall of feds.
Closer to Paul Schrader's narcissistic loners than to Jean-Pierre Melville's spiritual sangfroid, Edward's chilly sheen
is constantly broken by Ben Simcoe's self-conscious script with pocketbook fatalism ("Nothing comes to you,
except death," he berates a waiter) and sub-Nietschian philosophizing. Luckily, the film's oddness levels its
pretensions: the camera records Edwards doing pushups in his room, wiring a TV set to explode or surveilling
a rifle shop with the calm of a cunning artisan going through his routines. Working with cinematographer Lucien
Ballard, director Irving Lerner crafts inventive setups and editing, while a guitar plucks on the sidetrack. He
also shrewdly plays the killer's ice-water-in-the-veins coolness for comic effect in his clashes with a blousy lush, a
sloppily sentimental hooker and, most enjoyably, in contrast to the hipster jitters of the Mutt 'n' Jeff hoods chaperoning
him (Herschel Bernardi and Phillip Pine). Also with Caprice Toriel, Michael Granger, and Kathie Brownie. In black
and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce
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