Follow Me Quietly (1949)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Richard Fleischer

Writers:

Lillie Hayward (writer)
Anthony Mann (story)

Release Date:

14 July 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama | Mystery

Tagline:

Police baffled by the FACELESS KILLER!

Plot:

An obsessed cop tracks an elusive serial killer who strangles his victims on rainy nights.

Plot Keywords:

Strangler | Serial Killer | Imperative In Title | Title Spoken By Character

Cast

William Lundigan	...	Police Lt. Harry Grant
Dorothy Patrick	...	Ann Gorman
Jeff Corey	...	Police Sgt. Art Collins
Nestor Paiva	...	Benny
Charles D. Brown	...	Police Insp. Mulvaney
Paul Guilfoyle	...	Overbeck
Edwin Max	...	Charlie Roy aka The Judge
Frank Ferguson	...	J.C. McGill
Marlo Dwyer	...	Waitress
Archie Twitchell	...	Dixon (as Michael Branden)
Douglas Spencer	...	Phony Judge

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Spain:13 | USA:Approved (certificate #13392)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Quotes:

Police Lt. Harry Grant: We struck pay dirt.
Police Sgt. Art Collins: Yeah, if he buys his magazines here, he probably lives somewhere nearby.
Police Lt. Harry Grant: Well, we'll check the laundries, poolrooms, markets, saloons.
Police Sgt. Art Collins: It's a cinch. All we have to do is turn the neighborhood upside down, then shake all the buildings until he falls out of one of them.
Police Lt. Harry Grant: Let's start shaking.

Assassin without a face

Until I saw it listed in a French DVD catalogue, I didn't even remember that "Follow Me Quietly" existed. Picking it up more out of completism because of its co-story credit for Anthony Mann (who may have directed some sequences) than out of hope, it turned out to be a highly enjoyable sleeper. True, it's little more than a highly disposable studio programmer, but it moves briskly along at just over an hour and is filled with memorable moments, be it a newspaper editor dictating the story of his own murder or a conversation with a dummy of a faceless serial killer that has a neat payoff that has no bearing on the rest of the film whatsoever beyond just being a good scene. There's some fun in the sparring between William Lundigan's cop and Dorothy Patrick's rookie reporter for a downmarket crime magazine that owes much to director Richard Fleischer's neat touch with dialogue that would be much better utilised on The Narrow Margin. Mann's signature is evident in the finale, prefiguring his beloved mountain/canyon shootouts by having the finale take place in a chemical factory's gantries and platforms. Nothing special, but just the welcome sight of pros doing their job much better than anyone asked them to. For once the French title, Assassin Without a Face, seems a better fit than the American, the relevance of which only becomes apparent in the penultimate scene.