Murder by Contract

Claude decides to become a contract killer. He treats it as a choice of career: he does the sums, knows how many jobs he needs and wants to buy a house. He has to wait to be taken on, and he waits. The first jobs go without trouble. His method is cold; he does not know the target, feels no anger and leaves no trace. Then he is sent to Los Angeles. The new target is a woman who is to testify in court. Claude does not want to accept it; to him women are unpredictable and the job is risky. He takes it anyway. Irving Lerner directs. Vince Edwards plays Claude; Phillip Pine and Herschel Bernardi are in the cast. The film was made on a very small budget in a matter of days. Lucien Ballard is the cinematographer; in later years he worked on far larger productions. Its music consists of a single guitar, and the choice sets the coldness of the narrative. The matter it treats is murder taken as a trade; the film never enters the character's moral world. Almost nothing happens in the first half; the narrative shows waiting directly. It was often cited in later years by American independent directors among the films that influenced them. Its limit is scale; the budget shows, the locations are limited, and the ending is rushed. Who it is for: viewers who like film noir and low budget American crime cinema. Who it is not for: it is slow, the character cold, and technically rough.