Shield for Murder

Barney Nolan is a police detective who kills a bookmaker's runner and takes the twenty-five thousand dollars he was carrying. He thinks the killing was clean. But somebody saw it: a deaf and mute man. When Barney finds that out he has to do a second thing to keep the money. The badge will protect him for a while, but his own colleagues have started asking questions. The film was co-directed by Edmond O'Brien and Howard W. Koch, with O'Brien also in the lead. The source is William P. McGivern's novel. The mould is film noir, but a policeman is at its centre and the film never excuses him; Barney is guilty from the start and the audience knows it. It is one of the few American films of the fifties to show a corrupt policeman this directly. Carolyn Jones is also in the cast. Eighty-two minutes.