Random shootings in San Francisco

THE SNIPER (1952)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Aside from two murders committed by a mentally unbalanced man with a handy rifle, "The Sniper" is largely a white bread thriller - meaning that it is soft and fluffy and it tries to be a polemic but fails to ignite or cause much of a stir.

Eddie Miller (Arthur Franz) is a loner, living in a San Francisco boarding house and working as a cleaner delivery man. He is trying to work through his murderous impulses which includes unpacking an army rifle with a scope and aiming at pedestrians from his bedroom window. His homicidal urges are brought on by loose women who sing in bars or appear to be prostituting themselves, that is making themselves available to any man after being dumped. It is implied, through some ludicrously histrionic acting, that he rejects such women so he has to kill them (he turns away in disgust when seeing a kissing couple on a bench). Marie Windsor is a bar pianist who likes Miller because he delivers her clean dresses and will make last-minute deliveries for her - however, she has no romantic interest in him which obviously anger him.

50 percent of "The Sniper" centers on Miller rejected, bullied and scolded by society - he can't even make young kids playing ball happy when he tosses the ball back to them. This is a man who can't catch a break and can't make time with his vacationing therapist. Miller is a ball of fury and hate and takes it out on women, not men or children. One particularly effective scene has Miller throwing a baseball at a circus performer where she falls in a small pool if he hits his target - after he keeps hitting the target, he starts throwing the baseball at the net with such uncontrollable fury that you will recoil. If only the movie had more moments like that.

But the film veers off course to provide insight into why Miller kills - big mistake. "The Sniper" was released in 1952 and so we are still dealing with Hays Code implemented pictures where random acts of violence must be explicated by a serviceable police psychiatrist (Richard Kiley) and an older police detective, Lt. Kafka (Adolphe Menjou), who wants to solve this case or else he will be back on the beat. So much time is devoted to these characters that you feel you are watching a high-profile episode of "Dragnet."

After all is said and done, "The Sniper" lacks grit and purpose. Arthur Franz may overdo the psychotic trauma of this ex-soldier so much that you wonder why nobody suspects him from the start (his crying fits strike the wrong chord of sympathy). It is a pristine B picture, often well-mounted by director Edward Dmytryk ("The Caine Mutiny"), but the screenplay loses focus, aiming for preachiness rather than an amoral lurid melodrama that would have given it a pulpy punch. I wanted to learn more about Miller's impulses, his behavior towards women - in the end, we are told that the police thinks the sniper might be a registered sex offender. Seems like Miller has bigger issues beyond sex.