My favourite moment in Murder By Contract (1958) was when Claude (Vince Edwards), the cool out-of-town contract killer wearing a suit and a pair of shades, is picked up by two hoods (Philip Pine and Herschel Bernadi) who will oversee his assassination of a jury witness. Claude wants to tour the sights of LA. “I’d like to see the West Pacific Ocean,” he says. So they begrudgingly take him to the beach where he swims in his trunks with flippers on. When Claude gets back to their open top convertible, he throws one of them a towel, “Dry my back, will ya?” This is part of the oddball charm of Murder By Contract, a cheapo film noir whose cult status was anointed by Martin Scorsese’s professed love for it. It’s around 80 minutes long but packs a punch. Shot on a low budget but making good use of location shoots and effective editing, particularly with the implied off-screen violence of Claude’s work as a hitman (a profession he moves into to save money to buy a house). Most impressive is the idiosyncratic, oddball humour and characterisation of Claude as a no-nonsense professional who gets into existential monologues (Edwards is great in the lead), and starts to come apart at the seams when his ‘assignment’, a police-guarded witness (Caprice Toriel) seems to be a ‘jinxed’ job (twists of misfortune comparable to a Coen Brothers movie). It’s taut, kooky, and wonderfully effective. Watched before it left the Criterion Channel (but there should be a copy on YouTube). Recommended.
VHS Tracking 