| Follow Me Quietly | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Richard Fleischer Anthony Mann |
| Produced by | Herman Schlom |
| Written by | Screenplay: Lillie Hayward Story: Anthony Mann Francis Rosenwald |
| Starring | William Lundigan Dorothy Patrick Jeff Corey |
| Music by | Leonid Raab Paul Sawtell |
| Cinematography | Robert De Grasse |
| Editing by | Elmo Williams |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 7, 1949 (U.S.A.) |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Follow Me Quietly (1949) is a semidocumentary film noir directed by Richard Fleischer, with support from Anthony Mann in an uncredited position. The drama features William Lundigan, Dorothy Patrick, Jeff Corey, and others.[1]
Contents |
A mysterious killer, known only as "The Judge," kills anyone he considers worthless.
Detective Harry Grant (Lundigan) is assigned to track him down. With just a handful of clues, Grant constructs a faceless dummy to help his men conduct their investigation.
Police finally break the case after receiving an important clue. Finally, after cornering the killer during a chase on the catwalks of a refinery, the killer is revealed to be a middle-aged man whose cruel disposition and unattractive appearance lead him to become "The Judge."
The New York Times was dismissive of the film and wrote, "There is no intelligent reason why anyone should heed the proposal of Follow Me Quietly...[f]or this utterly senseless little thriller is patently nothing more than a convenient one-hour time-killer between performances of the eight-act vaudeville bill. In it, William Lundigan, playing a blue-print detective role, takes forever, it seems, to uncover a mystery murderer labeled "The Judge." When he finally does encounter this conspicuously unattractive gent, he chases him into a refinery and destroys him. That's the end of "Judge" and film."[2]
Critic Dennis Schwartz wrote of the film, "Follow Me Quietly is patterned after He Walked By Night. In this obsessive film noir, one oddly enough without a femme fatale, the police are the good-guys who take the viewer on a tour of a dark and cynical underworld that opened up in the postwar period. Fleischer leads us into this perverse noir world, but it only dallies with its noir atmosphere and instead turns into a straight mystery story—effectively filmed in a semi-documentary style that emphasizes police procedures over character studies or creating suspense over suspects."[3]