Very well executed

Sick Product of a Sick System

One of my all time favorites.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

"Royal Hunt of the Sun" director Irving Lerner's panic-stricken thriller "City of Fear," with Vince Edwards and Lyle Talbot, conjures up minimal paranoia. This black & white chiller about an impending apocalypse has an interesting premise. A desperate San Quentin inmate, Vince Ryker (Vince Edwards of "Murder by Contract"), has broken out of prison with a compatriot. Vince stabbed a guard to death in the process of breaking out. These two steal an ambulance and tear off down the highway. The inmate riding with Vince dies not long after their escape. Vince has grand plans once he reaches Los Angeles. He has to steal another car after he stops a motorist. He kills the car owner and burns the victim's body in the ambulance along with his inmate pal. Indeed, he believes that he has taken a cannister of heroin from the prison infirmary. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As it turns out, ignorant Vince has pinched a cannister of a dangerous isotope: cobalt-60, in powdered form, that is extremely lethal, lethal enough to throw a city into a panic. The authorities learn about the cannister, but they do a sloppy job of catching Vince. Of course, our misguided moron dies trying to open the cannister. He suffers horribly from exposure to the stuff and kills two accomplices along the way. Vince meets briefly with his old girlfriend, June Marlowe (Patricia Blair of "Jump into Hell"), and she doesn't inform on him because she is in love with the lug. Everybody that he encounters develops flu-like symptoms and sweats profusely. The pollution patrol cops cruiser around in cars with Geiger counters dangling out the windows to locate the stuff. Police Chief Jenson (Lyle Talbot of "Calling Homicide"), Lieutenant Mark Richards (John Archer of "White Heat"), and Doctor John Wallace (Steven Ritch of "Plunder Road") stand around at police headquarters and sweat a lot as things get out of hand, until they converge on Vince. Actually, the authorities blunder no sooner than they release the citizens that Ryker knew and would probably contact. Furthermore, they screw up badly because they fail to maintain surveillance on these individuals. Lerner alternates exterior location lensing of Los Angeles with stage-bound scenes at police headquarters. Unfortunately, Lerner doesn't have audiences sweating about the outcome as much as they grow restless waiting the inevitable. Vince Edwards delivers a hard-hitting performance, but everybody else is way too laid back. Some of the on-location camera work is evocative. Ultimately, "City of Fear" ranks a poor, second-rate imitation of earlier epics, including Eli Kazan's "Panic in the Streets and Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly."

An interesting late film noir based in L.A. It has a bit of the city "documentary" type filming. It starts out with an ambulance car racing down the street. We find out one of them is bleeding and they both escaped from jail. Vince, the driver, stole a can of what he thinks is heroine on his way out of jail. He feels like he can sell the drug and live off the money with his girlfriend.The film also focuses on the police investigation which cuts into the development time of any of the characters, thus they all remain underdeveloped. The escaped criminal Vince does come of as menacing and we see him descend fast from his jail break "high." The audience finds out quickly that the canister is a radioactive powder form of Cobalt 60, while Vince thinks its full of highly price worthy drugs. The film, from Vince's perspective shows him trying to set up a sale of the drug, while from the police perspective, we see them trying to prevent a city wide panic.There were good sequences and shots, like when Vince is trying to figure things out at night along a busy road and we see cuts of the cars passing by, Vince sweating and Vince holding on to the canister. But there is not enough to lift up the film from mediocrity. Interestingly, the musical score is conducted by the prolific Jerry Goldsmith. As far as noir films, it includes an interesting depiction of paranoia, egotism, violent consequences and illusions of grandeur. It is an inferior picture of Cold War, radioactive poisoning paranoia, but it will be an interesting film for fans of film noir movies who want to see the last throes of a great psychological cinematic movement.

It's not a classic by any means. But it has its virtues - the black and white cinematography, the great jazzy soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith, and particularly the extensive on-location shooting in and around Los Angeles. There are lots of scenes of 1950s cars cruising the street, store fronts and interiors - more than average, because they're looking for the protagonist. Living in LA, I especially enjoyed that. As for the plot, I've seen three or four similar plotted stories the last year - someone is contagious and threatens the city, or is carrying something radioactive, etc. This one had a slightly less plausible plot line, since the police weren't particularly protective. But I soaked up the ancillary elements - the acting was passable, the camera-work and lighting were above average - and I'm a sucker for the '50s.

A tawdry low budget pot boiler featuring dynamite performances by Vince Edwards and a similarly game supporting cast. I know Edwards is probably most famous for his heroic Ben Casey role, but he sure chewed up a lot of upholstery in movies like this one and MURDER BY CONTRACT the year before. A lot of the charm comes in watching this police procedural unfold. Lots of seedy low lives generally keep up the off color flavor and the suspense builds nicely over the course of time.Some of the discussion of radioactivity is dated, but the cannister makes a great macguffin for the gruff talking' square-jawed Men of Law to pursue. It really wouldn't have taken much to raise this from a guilty pleasure and enjoyable cautionary tale to something along the lines of KISS ME DEADLY, but it's almost more quaint to see this mostly forgotten and obscure b-movie in its under-appreciated present form, if you can find it. The last shot of the movie is quite a hoot! Fine, jazzy musical score by a then-very young Jerry Goldsmith.