L'assassin sans visage

Though RKO Radio had trouble turning out successful "A" pictures in the late 1940s-early 1950s, the studio's "B" productions were the best in the business. One of the best was 1949's strange, obsessive film noir Follow Me Quietly, which manages to pack more excitement and sheer entertainment value in 59 minutes than most big-budgeters can accomplish in twice that time. Detective Harry Grant (William Lundigan) is assigned to track down "The Judge," an unknown serial killer. With only a handful of sketchy clues, Grant constructs a faceless dummy to help his men conduct their investigation. The film's "money scene" finds the murderer quietly taking the dummy's place, right under the noses of the entire police force! Logic is not the film's strong suit, but Follow Me Quietly builds carefully to a dynamite finale filmed on location at an LA refinery (shades of White Heat!)

Interesting B movie starring William Lundigan and Dorothy Patrick about a police detective's search for a serial killer called "The Judge." Gritty city scenes (although as one poster points out, it was probably an RKO set) enhance the atmosphere, and it's one of the things that makes "Follow Me Quietly" unusual. Two more items of interest: A very exciting finale and the twist of having the police make a dummy model from everything they know about the perpetrator. In one scene, Lundigan is talking to the dummy's back, and it turns out to actually be the killer. Lundigan was a good looking, poor man's Joel McCrea, perfect to be a detective in real life but not much of an actor. He doesn't exude much energy. Patrick, an attractive blonde, neither wildly glamorous or beautiful, gives a spirited performance as a tabloid reporter.

Follow Me Quietly (1949) *** (out of 4) Exciting film noir from RKO has a detective (William Lundigan) trying to track down a mysterious killer known as "The Judge". I haven't heard too many film noir lovers mention this film but I found it to be very tense and brilliantly directed. The film only runs 59-minutes but there's a lot of style throughout each one of them. The ending is full of action and some nice suspense. The film runs at a very fast pace and is over before you know it but for the life of me I can't figure out why this film isn't talked about more. Certainly worth checking out if you can catch it on TCM.