Another of the movies that I recorded off of TCM because it sounded like an interesting premise was the B movie Bodyguard. Having watched it, I can finally do the review on it.
Lawrence Tierney plays Mike Carter, one of those police detectives who has a tendency to do things not quite by the book, and for which he has a tendency to get in trouble, although he also seems to have a group of kids who love him for it. Most recently, he's tried to investigate a place the vice squad already had on their radar, and his looking into things screwed it all up. So his supervisor is none too happy with him, and calls him into the office to chew him out and suspend him with desk duty. Mike has a nasty temper and responds by smacking his supervisor and quitting.
The next day, Mike is taking some of those kids to a ball game along with his fiancée Doris (Priscilla Lane), who also works at the police department. Showing up at the game is Freddie Dysen (Phillip Reed), who apparently knows that Mike has recently left the police force. Freddie is the nephew of Gene Dyson (Elisabeth Risdon), the owner of Continental Meat Packing. Freddie is worred about death threats against his aunt, and wants somebody who can serve as part investigator and part bodyguard. Freddie is willing to pay a retainer of $2,000, which is quite a bit of money for the late 1940s. Mike, however, isn't interested.
Later that evening, when Mike is back at his apartment with Doris, somebody slips an envelope under the door. It's presumably from Freddie, but it's enough of an inducement to get Mike to go over to Pasadena to see the Dysens. And when Mike is there, somebody fires a shot into the room where everybody is. Now, since this is a movie, it seems like a reasonable assumption on the part of the viewer that this is a set-up. But, unsurprisingly, Mike doesn't get that impression. In any case, he decides to take the job, at least in the form of taking an envelope from Freddie. Gene didn't see the need for a bodyguard, and doesn't know that Freddie has hired him.
Overnight, Mike catches Gene's secretary trying to remove the bullets from the wall that were shot the previous night. Mike then sees Gene heading off very early to one of the meat packing plants, and follows along. But he gets hit over the head, and wakes up to find... his old supervisor on the police force very much dead, and his car stalled on the train tracks, where a train is about to hit the car. Mike realizes he's been framed, and has to try to find the killer before the cops can bring him in.
Bodyguard is an interesting little B movie, although perhaps it's a bit too little at 62 minutes. It probably needed a bit more to flesh things out. However, the use of the word "interesting" is appropriate, and not just becuase the movie itself is worth a watch even if you didn't know anything about what's behind it. In addition to being a relatively early acting role for Lawrence Tierney, it's a relatively early directing job for Richard Fleischer, who would go on to bigger and better things. Even more interesting, however, is that it's based on a story co-written by a very young Robert Altman.
If you can find Bodyguard, it's definitely one to see, even if it's not a great movie.
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