Follow Me Quietly (USA, 1949) 59 min B&W DIR: Richard Fleischer. PROD: Herman Schlom. SCR: Lillie Hayward. STY: Anthony Mann, Francis Rosenwald. MUSIC: Leonid Raab, Paul Sawtell. DOP: Robert De Grasse. CAST: William Lundigan, Dorothy Patrick, Jeff Corey, Nestor Paiva, Charles D. Brown, Paul Guilfoyle, Frank Ferguson. (RKO Radio Pictures)
Before Richard Fleischer graduated to A-pictures like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, he crafted some inventive B-fare for RKO (most famously, The Narrow Margin). This 59-minute wonder chronicles an obsessive detective’s odyssey in tracking down a killer. Seen out of the time in which it was created, Follow Me Quietly emerges as a self-referential look at the genre, in the archetypal noir opening of rain teeming down on a sidewalk—in fact, the killer only strikes during the rain! Rain-slicked streets are a recurring motif of the genre -they look cool on film, and they suggest menace- but no other noir picture comes to mind that suggests a person’s psychosis due to the elements. In fact, detective Grant (William Lundigan) himself has understandably become somewhat deranged in his tireless obsession in bringing him to justice. One nighttime scene in the police station in which the reflections of the rain are shadows on his face (predating a famous shot from In Cold Blood by nearly 20 years) suggests he is psychotic too, although he exercises his passions somewhat differently. This noir is quite remarkable in its compact storytelling, and even more commendable for its mood. Somehow moments of black comedy fit unobtrusively into the mould. The most interesting scene is also the most figurative. The police department constructs a life-sized dummy made of the killer: everything is complete except for the face, where there is just a white mask instead. In that rainy moment, the detective starts talking to the dummy as though it were the actual killer. When he leaves the room, in one silhouetted shot, the dummy figure rises from the chair and walks off! The killer could be anyone, and could be anywhere. A nice touch.