Spoiler.
Boetticher made "Killer is Loose" the same year as his seminal and exciting Western "Seven Men From Now", the beginning of an impressive series of Westerns with Randolph Scott. In "Killer is Loose", a relatively minor effort, one gets the impression that Boetticher is merely doing routine job, which is to say there is nothing genuinely personal or elating about it.
Nonetheless, in its own ways "Killer is Loose" works and remains fascinating, sometimes terrifying film noir that packs a wallop thanks to its skill and compactness. The film anticipates Hitchcock's "Psycho" in its focus on the psycho killer on loose, brilliantly played by Wendell Corey. Joseph Cotten does a competent job playing the concerned cop. Rhonda Fleming, however, is surprisingly less satisfying than her other roles, like, for instance, the one she played so convincingly in Tourneur's "Out of the Past" and Lang's "While the City Sleeps". But I liked the way she handled the moment when the killer is stalking and walking behind her as she heads home and at the same time the police are watching them. The Walking and Talking sequence is brilliantly directed by Boetticher despite its abruptness. Overall, "Killer is Loose" is a good noir, but not one of Boetticher's best.
Boetticher made "Killer is Loose" the same year as his seminal and exciting Western "Seven Men From Now", the beginning of an impressive series of Westerns with Randolph Scott. In "Killer is Loose", a relatively minor effort, one gets the impression that Boetticher is merely doing routine job, which is to say there is nothing genuinely personal or elating about it.
Nonetheless, in its own ways "Killer is Loose" works and remains fascinating, sometimes terrifying film noir that packs a wallop thanks to its skill and compactness. The film anticipates Hitchcock's "Psycho" in its focus on the psycho killer on loose, brilliantly played by Wendell Corey. Joseph Cotten does a competent job playing the concerned cop. Rhonda Fleming, however, is surprisingly less satisfying than her other roles, like, for instance, the one she played so convincingly in Tourneur's "Out of the Past" and Lang's "While the City Sleeps". But I liked the way she handled the moment when the killer is stalking and walking behind her as she heads home and at the same time the police are watching them. The Walking and Talking sequence is brilliantly directed by Boetticher despite its abruptness. Overall, "Killer is Loose" is a good noir, but not one of Boetticher's best.