Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Leofwine_draca SHOOT TO KILL is a low budget film noir with some thriller aspects, including a fun night-time car chase, some bits of characters being stalked through dark streets, and character suspense. The story starts with a criminal being sentenced to prison but blaming the district attorney for framing him. Shortly afterwards the DA falls for a woman who may have ulterior motives, while a crusading reporter also gets mixed up in the story. Truth be told this is a cheap little affair with few surprises in store, but it's short and to the point and the story just about hangs together.

Panamint This is a cheap Lippert b-movie that overachieves its budget with such little extras as a great piano player, the solid Charles Trowbridge as a D.A., and some flashes of good cinematography. Taught with constant danger, it is sort of a hodgepodge of flashbacks, confusing plot twists and fast pace. The way it just keeps relentlessly forging ahead keeps you interested enough to see what happens next.Russell Wade, a nice guy type on-screen and off, is perfectly cast as the crusading newsman. Susan Walters, 35-ish veteran actress and no young piece of fluff, is convincingly hard as a strong-willed woman with big ideas. The villains are numerous (almost everybody is a villain) and are all well cast.Despite the flaws that are very well set forth by other reviewers in this section (probably better than I could recount them) this movie somehow kept me entertained, if a bit confused at times. So yes, it is possible to make a fairly satisfying film on a shoestring budget. That is the bottom line on "Shoot to Kill".

ackstasis This 1947 B-grade noir blasts straight out of Poverty Row, throwing everything it's got in a frantic hour of double-crossings and betrayals. One thing I love about low-budget noir is that nobody feels the obligation to create a hero: the District Attorney (Edmond MacDonald) is as crooked as a rake; his loving wife (Susan Walters) only married him to screw him over; George Mitchell (Russell Wade), a reporter for the "Tribune", is the closest we get to a hero, but he's such a smug bastard that you don't know what he's hiding. The film even features a rather lengthy and totally awesome piano solo by Gene Rodgers, because, hell, it's already got everything else you could want. There is a rather hokey stairway fight sequence that takes place in fast-forward, but otherwise I was impressed with director William Berke, and his ability to contrive an exciting film with a total budget of $3.59. 'Shoot to Kill' is a home-run for low-budget thrillers, and an entertaining way to obliterate 64 minutes of your spare time.

samhill5215 This has to be one of the corniest noirs to hit the screen. For the most part it was incomprehensible with the plot careening one way and then the other. The characters all spoke in a monotone advancing whatever was discernible about the plot by announcing their motives and plans. The dialog was made of one cliché after another suitably punctuated for effect such as when Walters (Luana Walters that is, here credited as Susan) announces to her husband Dixie Logan "Even if you were framed I know now that you're ROTten" (emphasis on ROT). Every character has his/her own agenda and proceeds to implement it with gusto without a care for their safety. Allegiances are formed and dissolved at lightening speed - nobody seems to be aware of the concept of loyalty. Without the score the viewer would be even more confused. At least it announced when something of interest was about to happen.If all this makes "Shoot to Kill" seem like a turkey you wouldn't be far off the mark. It's so corny it's actually kind of funny, in a desperate sort of way. After a while you begin to wander what else they're going to throw in the mix. But it has its good points. There's a neat fistfight on a staircase, supposedly down two flights of stairs although I suspect it was filmed on the same one flight with the protagonists starting over at the top. Along with the fists so did the railings and I began to wonder whether it wouldn't collapse. On their budget they'd have to keep the footage. Punches and slaps were thrown that seemed to connect, especially the one on Walters toward the end. She disappears off camera falling down only to bounce back up unperturbed to deliver her memorable line quoted in the previous paragraph.The real revelation is pianist Gene Rodgers who appears 9:30 into the movie. Previously unknown to me, he was magic, a god of boogie jazz. He plays two of his own compositions, "Ballad of the Bayou" and "Rajah's Blues", both unaccompanied pieces. A little research revealed that he was based in LA at the time the movie was shot and returned to NY where he lived and worked the rest of his life. He died in '87. If for no other reason see this film for Rodgers.