The Killer Client & the PI

Introduction

Discussions of private eye film noirs focus on the detective character – challenged by a femme fatale, a corrupt world and a convoluted plot – and relate him to issues such as masculine identity and possession of or lack of control (over his client, the case or even language). As a rule, these discussions don’t address the extent to which a detective film is inherently limited as noir because the protagonist’s attributes are heroism, moral integrity and so on.

Moreover, these discussions ignore a critical recurring character, the “killer client.” He or she hires the PI, but also kills other people or has them murdered and/or imperils the detective.

The first private eye film noir, The Maltese Falcon, has a killer client. In fact, nearly half of PI film noirs have this character. That is, of the 33 film noirs with a private detective, there are 16 with a killer client. (For the 33 PI film noirs, see the page The Missing PI in Film Noir.)

Furthermore, the killer client’s motives for retaining and then turning against the gumshoe are the raison d’être for making noir the film’s plot.

Presentation

Private Eye Film Noirs with a Killer Client: title, date, private eye (actor), killer client (actor)

The Maltese Falcon, 1941, with Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) [See the subsection, “The Soft Femme Fatale in The Maltese Falcon: Brigid O’Shaughnessy,” in the page International Lady. For more about the femme fatale in The Maltese Falcon, see the page Calling Dr. Death, with a highlight of the last paragraph.)

Time to Kill, 1942, Michael Shayne (Lloyd Nolan), Mrs. Murdock (Ethel Griffies)

Quiet Please, Murder, 1942, Hal McBryne (Richard Denning), Myra Blandy (Gail Patrick) [See the page Quiet Please, Murder.]

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, 1942, Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone), Sir Evan Barham (Reginald Denny) [See the page Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror.]

Murder, My Sweet, 1944, Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell), Helen Grayle/Velma Valento (Claire Trevor)

The Falcon in San Francisco, 1945, Tom Lawrence/the Falcon (Tom Conway), first tries to aid Joan Marshall (Rita Corday) and, afterwards, her father De Forest Marshall (Robert Armstrong) to expose a smuggling operation inside the shipping line Joan owns and De Forest manages. The Falcon and Joan believe that her father, who was once known as the gangster Duke Monette (and who the police believe had died years before), wants to go straight. The special twist is that the Falcon is mistaken. In the film’s climax, he realizes that Duke has already committed several murders and intends to kill everyone else who knows he is alive. He has deceived his daughter about abandoning his criminal career. Instead, he has secretly been the leader of the smuggling ring.

The Tiger Woman, 1945, Jerry Devery (Kane Richmond), Sharon Winslow (Adele Mara)

The Dark Corner, 1946, Stauffer (William Bendix) and Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens), Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb) The special twist is that there are two private eyes. After Cathcart has Stauffer (“White Suit”) commit murder to frame Gault, Cathcart kills Stauffer.

The Last Crooked Mile, 1946, Tom Dwyer (Don Barry), Floyd Sorelson (Tom Powers) After four robbers supposedly steal $300,000 from the bank Sorelson manages, they all die, and Sorelson hires Dwyer to find the money. Dwyer figures out the robbery was “an inside job,” and Sorelson kept $150,000 for himself. Confronting Sorelson, Dwyer tells Sheila Kennedy (Ann Savage) that Sorelson first tried to frame her for the murder of Spike Edwards (Bert LeBaron, uncredited), the auto mechanic who hid the robbers’ share inside a car’s running board. “When that didn’t work, he tried to run you down with his car.” Sorelson pulls out a gun to shoot Dwyer, but Kennedy knocks it away, and then Sorelson is arrested. In the finale Dwyer reveals to Kennedy that he knows she has the missing $150,000 and that she got it when she murdered the two men who had killed Edwards. She pulls out her own gun and orders Dwyer, who is driving, to accelerate his car and jump out. But he tricks her, gets her gun and then she, too, is arrested. The special twist is that Sheila Edwards, uniquely in film noir in the “classic era” (1940-1959), begins as a woman in distress and ends as a femme fatale.

The Brasher Doubloon, 1947, Philip Marlowe (George Montgomery), Mrs. Elizabeth Murdock (Florence Bates)

High Tide, 1947, Tim Slade (Don Castle), Hugh Fresney (Lee Tracy). [See the page High Tide.]

Out of the Past, 1947, Jeff Bailey/Jeff Markham (Robert Mitchum), Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas)

Philo Vance’s Gamble, 1947, Philo Vance (Alan Curtis), working for (but not hired by) Laurian March (Vivian [Terry] Austin)

Riff-Raff, 1947, Dan Hammer (Pat O’Brien), Charles Hasso (Marc Krah) The special twist is that the killer client himself doesn’t endanger the PI. However, by hiring him, he is responsible for detective’s subsequent jeopardy. After Hasso commits murder to get possession of a map, he hires Hammer to protect him. Hasso hides the map before he is killed. Because Hasso’s killer suspects Hammer might know where the map is, Hammer’s own life isn’t safe.

I Love Trouble, 1948, Stuart Bailey (Fanchot Tone), Ralph Johnston (Tom Powers)

My Gun Is Quick, 1957, Mike Hammer (Robert Bray), Nancy Williams (Whitney Blake)

The Deceitful “Client”

In two private eye film noirs, there is a deceitful “client” instead of a killer client. In both of them, this character is a woman. She doesn’t hire the PI. She doesn’t kill anyone. The detective is in love with her. Her lies to him result in putting his life in mortal danger.

Private Eye Film Noirs with a Deceitful “Client”: title, date, private eye (actor), deceitful client (actor)

The Big Sleep, 1946, Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart), General Sternwood (Charles Waldron)

Marlowe is supposed to take care of the gambling debts run up by General Sternwood’s younger daughter, Carmen (Martha Vickers). General Sternwood says his daughters “are alike only in having the same corrupt blood.” He describes his older daughter, Vivian (Lauren Bacall), as “spoiled, exacting, smart, and ruthless.” General Sternwood also tells Marlowe that the man he had employed to be his friend, Sean Regan, disappeared a month earlier without even saying goodbye. Before Marlowe leaves the house, he meets Vivian, who wonders whether her father hired Marlowe to find Regan.

No sooner are the gambling debts removed from the plot than Vivian comes to Marlowe’s office to ask him to deal with a small-time blackmail shakedown involving photos of Carmen. She also tells Marlowe that Regan ran off with the wife of Eddie Mars (John Ridgely), the owner of a gambling casino (and, it is later revealed, a criminal many times over).

No sooner is the blackmail shakedown removed from the plot than Vivian tries to pay off Marlowe so that he will stop his investigation. Marlowe, however, is suspicious that Eddie Mars has “got” something on Vivian, and he wants to know what it is. She insists that there is nothing between Mars and herself. Using the clout of General Sternwood’s name, Vivian pulls strings to have the district attorney order Marlowe to “lay off the Sternwood case.” Marlowe’s response is, “There’s no law that says a man can’t work on a case without a client.”

Since Vivian is preventing Marlowe from communicating with General Sternwood, and General Sternwood has no idea what Vivian is doing in his name, General Sternwood is still actually Marlowe’s client. Marlowe suspects that what Mars has got on Vivian has something to do with Regan’s disappearance. When Marlowe tries to telephone General Sternwood, Vivian takes the call instead. She tells Marlowe that Regan has been found in Mexico and that she is on her way to see him.

Marlowe gets information where Eddie Mars’s wife is. He follows the lead and winds up being knocked out by Mars’s hired killer, Canino (Lash Steele). When he comes to, Mrs. Mars (Peggy Knudsen) is there, as well as Vivian. He is also tied up and handcuffed. Mars’s wife says Regan was just a friend. Vivian lied to Marlowe that Mrs. Mars ran off with Regan, and she lied that she was going to Mexico to meet him. Canino has gone out to find out from Mars what he should do with Marlowe, and Marlowe is sure that Mars will order Canino to kill him.

Vivian, as her father said, is “ruthless.” No matter how much Vivian loves Marlowe, she has done all she could to prevent him from learning that Mars has been blackmailing her. According to Mars, Carmen murdered Regan out of jealousy that he preferred Mrs. Mars to herself. Whether Carmen or Mars himself killed Regan is irrelevant. Vivian has believed Mars and has been paying him for his silence about Carmen. Vivian’s deceit about Regan being alive nearly costs Marlowe his life.

World for Ransom, 1954, Mike Callahan (Dan Duryea), Frennessey March (Marian Carr)

Before World War II, Frennessey was Mike’s girlfriend in Shanghai. While he was in the service, she met and married Julian March (Patric Knowles). Now, years later, the three of them are in Sinapore, and Mike still openly carries a torch for her. At Frennessey’s request (but apparently not for payment), Mike has been tailing Julian, probably to report to her on the other women he is having affairs with. But Mike, who is also Julian’s friend, doesn’t give him away. Mike wants to stop because, as he explains to her, doing so may give him “some second chance with you some day, but spying on a man through keyholes and coming back and singing to his wife, he’d hate me and so would you.”

Julian helps kidnap a professor, “one of the four men in the world who knows how to detonate the H-bomb.” Then he and the professor hide out in a deserted village deep in the jungle. The plan, hatched by Alexis Paderas (Gene Lockhart), is to blackmail the British colonial government $5 million for the return of the professor. If the British won’t pay, Paderas will make an offer to the Communists. Julian is nothing more than a flunky in the operation. However, he impersonated a British officer to deceive the professor, so if the British Army catches him, he faces a long jail stretch.

Frennessey promises Mike that if he can get Julian out of the mess he is in, she will go off with him. Convinced that he will finally have her for himself, Mike makes his way to the remote village. However, when he confronts Julian, Julian tries to shoot him. Mike blows up Julian with two hand grenades and leaves the professor to be rescued by British soldiers who have reached the village.

When Mike tells Frennessey what happened, he learns that she had no intention of leaving Julian. She says that during the war he supposed that she was demurely waiting for him. In fact, because she had to deal with “a little problem of earning a living,” she had been a prostitute. Julian knew about it, but he still asked her to marry him. She says, “Imagine, Mike, if I’d waited for you and then I’d told you, how you would have detested me for not being as you remembered me. How I would have eventually detested you…That’s why I love Julian, because he loves me as I really am.”

She refuses to believe that Mike didn’t kill Julian deliberately. Mike says, “He tried to kill me.” She responds, “You don’t breathe a word against him…You weren’t in love with me. You were in love with some goofy eighteen-year old. A lily-white doll in your own mind. Well, Julian loved me. ‘Til I die I’ll love him. You, you murdered him for me. Well, this is all you’re ever going to be: murderer, murderer….” Frennessey repeatedly slaps Mike’s face. He risked his life for nothing. He leaves her crying and walks out into the same street at night where the film began. He is alone, as he was in the opening scene. Because the woman the PI loves not only rejects him but also humiliates him, World for Ransom has perhaps the most downbeat conclusion of any private eye film noir.