Edmond O Brien in "Shield For Murder" (1954) - feat. Claude Akins

Veteran Police Lieutenant Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien) has become corrupt and vicious. He fatally shoots a bookmaker, steals his $25,000, then claims he tried to escape custody. Sergeant Mark Brewster (John Agar), his friend and protégé, believes this rogue cop, as does the Captain of Detectives, Captain Gunnarson (Emile Meyer). However, newspaper reporter Cabot (Herbert Butterfield) suspects otherwise.
Barney takes his girlfriend, Patty Winters (Marla English), to see a new house that is for sale, in which he suggests the two of them could have a happy life. He hides the money behind the home.
Packy Reed (Hugh Sanders), the dead man's boss, sends private investigators Fat Michaels (Claude Akins) and Laddie O'Neil (Lawrence Ryle) to tell Barney he wants to see him. Packy gives Barney one chance to return the money, but Barney is uncooperative.
Deaf-mute Ernst Sternmuller (David Hillary Hughes) witnessed the bookmaker's murder. He goes to the police station with a note explaining what he saw, but gives it to Barney, whom he does not recognize as the killer. Barney later goes to the man's apartment, pushes the old man, who strikes his head, and dies. Barney stages things to make it seem like an accident, unaware that Sternmuller had been writing a full account of the murder. Mark, investigating the death, finds this narrative.
Barney drinks and fends off a flirtatious blonde Giral at a bar (Carolyn Jones). He calls Patty on the phone, and she reveals that Michaels and O'Neil had approached her menacingly. Enraged, he pistol whips them both into unconsciousness, while everyone else in the bar reacts hysterically.
Barney goes home. Mark is waiting to arrest him. The two men struggle and Barney knocks Mark out. Mark regains consciousness, takes the notepad with Sturnmuller's account to his boss, Gunnarson, who initiates a manhunt.
Barney and Michaels shoot it out. Barney manages to kill the other man. The police converge on Barney. He shoots it out with them and manages to dig up the money, but as he emerges from the yard, he is confronted by several policemen. He fires at them, and they shoot him dead.
A 1954 American Black & White film-noir crime film co-directed by Edmond O'Brien and Howard W. Koch, produced by Aubrey Schenck, screenplay by Richard Alan Simmons and John C. Higgins, based on William P. McGivern's novel of the same name, cinematography by Gordon Avil, starring Edmond O Brien, Marla English, John Agar, Emile Meyer, Carolyn Jones, Claude Akins, Lawrence Ryle (as Larry Ryle), Herbert Butterfield, Hugh Sanders, and William Schallert. Screen debut appearance of Stafford Repp.
First credited film and first lead role for Marla English.
First film directed by Edmond O'Brien (1915-1985), born Eamon Joseph O'Brien in Brooklyn, New York. An American actor of stage, screen, and television, and film director. His career spanned almost 40 years, and he won one Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. O'Brien went to Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre on a scholarship.
O'Brien began working in summer stock in Yonkers, then took classes with the Columbia Laboratory Players group, which emphasized training in Shakespeare. O'Brien's theatre work attracted the attention of Pandro Berman at RKO. Berman offered O'Brien the role of a romantic lead in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939).
The cast is full of actors who would later become stars or regulars on hit TV series. Carolyn Jones is best known as Morticia on "The Addams Family" (1964). Claude Akins was Sheriff Lobo on both "B.J. and the Bear" (1978) and "The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo" (1979). William Schallert was the dad on "The Patty Duke Show" (1963). For 30 years John Beradino was Dr. Steve Hardy on "General Hospital" (1963). Richard Deacon was the stuffy producer Mel Cooley on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961). And Stafford Repp was Police Chief O'Hara on "Batman" (1966).
The Production Designer was Charles D. Hall, in one of his many later productions. Hall had been the art director of "Dracula" (1931), "Frankenstein" (1931), "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932), "The Invisible Man" (1933), "The Black Cat" (1934), "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935), and "One Million B.C." (1940). In this film, Hall includes many "found" objects and locations, all of which are deceptively simple. He used this technique in his second to last feature, "The Unearthly" (1957), credited as "Daniel Hall".
When Noland shows Patty the new model house, the sign says "Castle Heights Tract Homes". Castle Heights is an actual Los Angeles neighborhood where such homes were being built at the time. It is situated between Chevoit Hills, Beverlywood and the Santa Monica Freeway.
A well-executed, better than average, action-packed, entertaining and unpretentious programmer. Oscar-winning actor and supporting actor Edmond O'Brien was far from the usual Hollywood "pretty boy", an ugly and brick-like guy who could really act.