Follow Me Quietly

Hi Aki,

Last night I watched Follow Me Quietly a 40s crime picture. It’s a B picture, runs about 65 minutes, and was directed by Richard Fleischer at RKO studios.

Story involves the police investigation to apprehend ‘the Judge’ a serial killer who strangles his victims and leaves notes calling the victims ‘sinners’ whom he has ‘judged.’ He always strangles them, from behind, always at night, always in the rain. A young gal-reporter working from the 4 Star Crime lurid magazine wants a scoop, and she dogs Lt Grant, who’s obsessed with the Judge. Only the Lt despises that magazine and won’t give the girl a break. They talk in one scene about the relative responsibilities and importance of the public’s right to know and the policeman’s desire for a secret, effective investigation. But in the end he warms to her because, well, if he didn’t there’d be no romance, and back then every movie had to have at least a little love in it.

The Lt is so obsessed by the case that instead of a description, he has special effects make him a dummy that looks exactly like the Judge based on all their evidence – it looks so eerily like him (except for the face, that is blank) that some witnesses are struck by the resemblance, and the cops go around LA rounding up every tall middle-aged man!

The Lt even stages a show and interview with the dummy for the rest of the department – and the Lt supplies the voice and answers for the Judge. He even takes to putting the dummy in his office and talking to it. ‘It’s a rainy night, Judge … I know you feel restless tonight … you’re going to kill again tonight, aren’t you?’

In the movie’s only genuinely creepy moment, the Lt then leaves to drive around town in the rain at night. His sergeant partner is left alone in the room with the dummy, but it’s too creepy for him, and he leaves. Then we see the dummy all by itself, sitting and looking out on the rainy cityscape … then the dummy stirs, looks round, stands up! It takes out the real dummy from a closet, and walks out… (This scene, quite effective, is never explained. Who was the guy, was it the Judge himself, and if so, how did he walk into police HQ and into the Lt’s office? Why was he there?)

Eventually they track the Judge down, and find his apartment, where they wait for him to come home. In another effective scene, a man the manager says is his tenant ‘Charles Roy’ – alias the Judge, walks up the street toward the apartment building. It’s broad daylight. We only see the suit, the hat – he looks like the dummy, all right – and he pauses on the stoop. Looks up and down the street. It’s empty, nobody is there. He looks up – and we see his face for the first time!!! Somehow he guesses the cops are there and he bolts. The chase is on.

They chase him to a nearby waterworks for the climax, well shot (too bad it’s not at night; there are many other such chases in crime thrillers of the period, shot at real locations; the best of them shoot at night so the machines and pipes of the plant cut bars of black and white across the scene like a cage). The Lt chases the Judge up to the top, flight after flight. He shoots, but the Judge grabs the gun and fires back. Out of bullets, the Judge reaches the top, and the Lt climbs relentlessly up to get him. At this point there’s no telling Judge from Lt and indeed, a few characters have remarked how much the Lt is like the Judge.

The two battle it out, and the Lt wins. He handcuffs the Judge and leads him down. But some stray bullets have punctured holes in a water pipe, and the way down leads through a shower of water, that falls on the metal floor like the rain … the rain … the Judge can’t take it, he finds new strength and overcomes the Lt, dragging him back up the catwalk steps to the top pipes. The Lt falls under the rail and is dangling, several stories up, suspended only by the handcuffs. He fights back, but the Judge kicks him, forces him down, writhes like a madman – the handcuffs pull loose – the Judge pitches backward over the opposite railing and falls to his death. The Lt manages to hold on, and even hooks up with his gal reporter at the bar where they met. Ah, true love!

The title seems to come out of nowhere. The film is well shot for a cheapie, although the darkness you usually think of in a noir is lacking. I didn’t catch who shot it. One structural flaw has a montage of searching, then one scene, then another search montage. The opening is strong, but oddly wrong: we open on the rain splashing on a sidewalk, and a woman’s shapely legs in black high heels pacing back and forth. (Turns out this is the reporter outside the bar, she then goes in to try to find the Lt for an interview.)

The most interesting credit turns out to be who shared credit for original story: Anthony Mann! Indeed, the story has the Mann double hero, the hero who is just one reflection different from the villain he’s tracking, the hero obsessed, almost psychotically so. Alas, Fleischer and star William Lundigan don’t manage to portray this creepiness – either they didn’t get it, or they didn’t want to go that far. Anthony Mann, if he had directed, would have pushed his star to go there, though whether Lundigan could have managed what Jimmy Stewart did later in Winchester ‘73 and his other Mann westerns.

(23 March 2009)