***SPOILERS*** In a role that very possibly inspired the "Psycho Cop" series of movies of the 1990's Edmond O'Brian as the sweaty disheveled and bug eyed LA police detective Barney Noland is about as rotten and barbaric as any film or TV policemen ever seen up to that time. Murdering without conscience Barney not only guns down an innocent bookie, Kirk Martin,to grab his $25,000.00 bankroll he's given by his boss Packy Reed, Hugh Sanders, but murders by wringing his neck and throwing him down a flight of stairs deaf mute Ernest Sternmuller,David Hughes. That's in that Sternmuller is the one person who can identify Barney in Martin's murder.
Working his way up in the LAPD as a Let. Detective the pay, about $100,00 a week, wasn't enough for Barney's future plans to marry 20 year old, some 20 years Barney junior, cigarette girl Patty Winters, Maria English and get a house out in the suburbs. So when Barney got a tip that Martin was loaded with cash he jumped at it not caring what the consequences were going to be. It was Barney's good friend at the LAPD Detective Sgt. Mark Brewster, John Agar, who by getting to the bottom, of the stairs, of deaf mute Sternmuller's death who figured out that his good friend and mentor Barney Noland murdered him! As well as him being the person who murdered bookie Kirk Martin!
Barney also takes time to brutally pistol whip private detectives Fats Michaels & Laddie O'Neil, Claud Akins & Lawrence Ryle, who were hired by Mob Boss Packy Reed to checkup on him at a local spaghetti joint where he picked up boozy Carolyn Jones, wearing a blond wig, for a date. In the end it was Fats, with his head bandaged like Lon Cheney Jr in the "Mummy's Curse", who tried to murder Barney at a local YMCA where he was suppose to get the tickets and ready cash from mobster Mannings, Michael H. Cutting, for him & Patty to check out of the country to South America.
***SPOILERS*** Now on the run from both the law and the mob Barney is finally gunned down in a hail of bullets by the LA police lead by his good friend Det. Sgt. Breswter in front of the house that he hoped to buy with his ill gotten gains, the $25,000.00 in bookie money, for him and Patty to spend the rest of their lives living in. It's a shame that Edmond O'Brian wasn't given more psycho type roles like the one in "Shield for Murder" in him being so good in playing one. By then I would guess he was far too old and chubby to be convincing in playing psychos leaving them up to younger actors like Anthony Perkins to get to be cast in them.
Working his way up in the LAPD as a Let. Detective the pay, about $100,00 a week, wasn't enough for Barney's future plans to marry 20 year old, some 20 years Barney junior, cigarette girl Patty Winters, Maria English and get a house out in the suburbs. So when Barney got a tip that Martin was loaded with cash he jumped at it not caring what the consequences were going to be. It was Barney's good friend at the LAPD Detective Sgt. Mark Brewster, John Agar, who by getting to the bottom, of the stairs, of deaf mute Sternmuller's death who figured out that his good friend and mentor Barney Noland murdered him! As well as him being the person who murdered bookie Kirk Martin!
Barney also takes time to brutally pistol whip private detectives Fats Michaels & Laddie O'Neil, Claud Akins & Lawrence Ryle, who were hired by Mob Boss Packy Reed to checkup on him at a local spaghetti joint where he picked up boozy Carolyn Jones, wearing a blond wig, for a date. In the end it was Fats, with his head bandaged like Lon Cheney Jr in the "Mummy's Curse", who tried to murder Barney at a local YMCA where he was suppose to get the tickets and ready cash from mobster Mannings, Michael H. Cutting, for him & Patty to check out of the country to South America.
***SPOILERS*** Now on the run from both the law and the mob Barney is finally gunned down in a hail of bullets by the LA police lead by his good friend Det. Sgt. Breswter in front of the house that he hoped to buy with his ill gotten gains, the $25,000.00 in bookie money, for him and Patty to spend the rest of their lives living in. It's a shame that Edmond O'Brian wasn't given more psycho type roles like the one in "Shield for Murder" in him being so good in playing one. By then I would guess he was far too old and chubby to be convincing in playing psychos leaving them up to younger actors like Anthony Perkins to get to be cast in them.