The Clay Pigeon

Jim Fletcher wakes from a coma to learn that a court martial has been opened against him for treason: he stands accused of informing on his fellow prisoners in a Japanese camp during the Second World War. He escapes the hospital to clear his name and asks for help from Martha Gregory, the widow of the friend he is said to have informed on. Another survivor of the camp helps him too. The further he follows it, the larger the thing gets: his former Japanese guard, ten million dollars in American currency forged by the Japanese, and a criminal network taking shape across southern California. Richard Fleischer’s sixty-three-minute noir was made at RKO. Bill Williams plays Fletcher and Barbara Hale plays Martha. The engine of the story is the amnesia itself: to defend himself the man has to remember what he did.