Good start, but then it gets ruined

Absolutely the worst movie.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Enjoyed this 1950 film which dealt with a mental patient who thinks he was a soldier during WW II and has a legal license to kill any one he decides to kill. This crazy person is played by Marshall Thompson, (Gunther Wyckoff) who is riding in a bus and sitting next to a lady who is trying to be friendly, but Gunther just looks straight ahead and views a gun that the bus driver had on his sun shade and just gets up and blows this driver away. Gunther eventually goes into a bar and locks all the customers in the bar and starts killing the bartender and threatens various other women in the bar. Gunther wants to have his Doctor John D. Faron visit him in the bar in order to prevent him from causing all this death to innocent people. There is plenty of tension in this bar and the women in the bar do their very best to try and over power this nut case.

(There are Spoilers) Hostage drama that takes place in this bar with an on the loose psycho killer who just flew the coop from the local state hospital for the criminally insane wanting to see his shrink, psychiatrist, who got him off from being executed for the murder of a policeman three years earlier.The crazed killer Gunther Wyckoff, Marshall Tompson, didn't waste any time in making himself known to the public and police by gunning down a bus driver,John Damler, who's gun that was in full view of everyone on the bus was lifted by Gunther when everyone, including the bus driver, left the bus on a rest stop. The bus driver was not only incompetent in leaving his gun on board for Gunther to grab but later realizing that his gun was missing he didn't have enough sense to check for himself! The bus driver confronts Gunther not only telling him to give him his gun back but actually tries to grab it off him! You can just imagine what happened next, he got it right in the gut.Gunther wanting to see his psychiatrist Dr. John D. Faron, Sam Levene, about something in his past is frustrated to find that the doc is nowhere to be found, not in his office or apartment. Gunther going to the local bar to dry out only gets even more crazy when the bartender Chuckels, William Conrad,who's only doing his job forces him to have a drink, which he of course doesn't pay for. Within minutes Gunther completely loses it when he's spotted by Chuckels on the screen of his 3 by 4 foot remote control flat-screen projection TV set broadcasting a police bulletin with his picture, front and side, and then all hell breaks lose.Gunning down Chuckles who tried to pull a gun on him Gunther then takes center stage, and five hostages, in the movie as he calls all the shots, as well as giving them out.Gunther is determined to having a chat with Dr. Faron about his both mental state and military service. This goes on for what seems like days, it's all supposed to take place in less then a hour, as Gunther terrorizers the customers who are now his hostages. You can't help wondering why Gunther wants so badly to see Dr. Faron to the point where he already murdered two people to get an audience with him?You know right away that this guy, Gunther Wyckoff, is not only nuts but all his talk about his glorious and macho experiences in the US Army during the war, that he talks endlessly about to his captive audience, is all a pile of horse-sh*t. It's Dr Faron himself who later, against police orders, makes it into the bar and finally has this important talk with the psycho. Dr. Faron brings Gunther back to reality in just how ridicules he is, he was in fact never overseas and kicked out of the Army on a section 8, in his fantasies about his combat experiences which besides showing just how unprofessional Dr Faron is, in disturbing an already very disturbed and unstable person. Dr. Faron sets the now really off-the-wall Gunther off and jeopardizing not only his but the lives of all the people in the bar.Interesting but not at all earth-shaking movie about a mentally ill young man, Gunther Wyckoff, who just couldn't get it out of his head that he was a failure at what he loved most in being a blood & guts war hero. Gunther substituted that failed ambition in becoming a psycho killer of defenseless and innocent people. With the one person who could possibly help him, Dr. Faron, also failing to understand with just what kind of a dangerous person he was dealing with. Gunther egged on by Dr.Faron in revealing his darkest fears, that he just couldn't cut it as a combat soldier, that in the end cost both him and Gunther their lives.

Marshall Thompson as an escaped crazed killer and general all-round psycho? I don't think so. He appears to be sleepwalking through his role as a very disturbed young man with issues about his psychiatrist. This could have been a turning point for this contract player but he didn't seem to be up to it. A couple of bursts of hysteria and that's about it.The story takes place in a small, rather cozy bar in Terminal City (get it?) that looks like the Big Apple. Thompson hold 6 people hostage, (well, really 5 since he guns down the bartender William Conrad right off the bat). He wants to meet up with his former doctor, played rather badly by Sam Levine, who convinced a jury that Thompson was insane, thereby having him sent to an asylum instead of the gas chamber. Needless to say, Thompson is ticked off, escapes from the asylum and threatens to kill the bar patrons unless Levine shows up for a face-to-face. This drags on for a while and Levine finally walks into the bar and proceeds to do what no self-respecting psychiatrist would even consider. Needless to say it doesn't work out and Levine is unceremoniously dispatched. Things get dicey, shots ring out, and then it's over.The supporting cast is one we all recognize (Andrea Leeds, Keefe Brasselle, Virginia Field, et al) and they do their best with a rather sparse script. This isn't the worst movie you've ever seen but it's not much. So Marshall Thompson rides off into the sunset to second rate roles and probably missed his big opportunity for stardom.

Having just watched this on TCM and after reading the previous reviews for this film all I can say is that although there may be limited moments of great suspense which does not take anything away from the film.The plot- insane man escapes from a mental institution and holds five people hostage in a bar. Now if you have ever seen any films from the 50's you should know what fate always falls upon the villain.If given the opportunity to see it you definitely should just to see a basic storyline before it became overdone, but if you need your movies to go from one moment of terror to the next this is not the movie for you; otherwise this film should hold you attention from beginning to end.