Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

seymourblack-1 "Shoot To Kill" (aka Police Reporter) is a great example of a low budget movie that delivers terrific entertainment, intrigue and surprises by means of a story that's refreshingly different from the norm. It begins with a high speed car chase that ends when one of the cars crashes and the police, who were chasing it, discover that two of its occupants are dead and the third is badly injured. Whilst they knew that the driver was an escaped convict, the cops are shocked to discover that his passengers were the city's newly appointed District Attorney and his wife. While she's recovering in her hospital bed, Marian Langdon Dale (Luana Walters) agrees to tell her friend, newspaper reporter George "Mitch" Mitchell (Russell Wade), about the events that led up to the crash.Marian had sought employment at the Assistant D.A.'s office after seeing Larry Dale (Edmund MacDonald) successfully prosecute gangster Dixie Logan (Robert Kent) on a murder charge that led to Logan being sentenced to 20 years in prison and had been grateful to Mitch when he had used his influence with Larry to get her appointed as his secretary. Larry, who was rumoured to have used bribed witnesses to secure Logan's conviction, was regularly visited by local crime boss Gus Miller (Nestor Paiva) who, on one occasion, recognised the Courthouse janitor as being one of Logan's gang members. After Miller had left, the janitor planted a bug in Larry's office but later, on Miller's orders, two of his men had called by the building and threw the janitor down the elevator shaft.Larry was on good terms with all three of the crime bosses (including Miller) who were Dixie Logan's main rivals and Miller, having been concerned about how close Larry and Marian had become, urged Larry to fire her before she learned too much about their business. However, after having discovered that his office was bugged and having good reason to suspect Marian, Larry decided instead to marry her so that, as his wife, she wouldn't be able to testify against him. Marian arranged the marriage with a local judge that she knew well and afterwards told Larry that she knew how corrupt he was but would stand by him and support his campaign to be District Attorney subject to the condition that he rids the city of the three crime bosses who were responsible for a crime wave that seemed to be carrying on unchecked.Larry had then set up the crime bosses to wipe each other out before a whole sequence of surprising developments and revelations eventually lead to Marian being able to explain fully what motivated her actions and led to her and Larry travelling in the same car as Dixie Logan.Watching "Shoot To Kill" is an exhilarating experience because the action drives forward with tremendous purpose, the dialogue is punchy and the impressive visual compositions contribute so much to the moody atmosphere. Expectations are obviously low with movies of this calibre and the quality of the acting isn't great. What is great however, is the convoluted plot which unfolds in flashback, features numerous twists and double crosses and is far more original than most of those seen in similar crime thrillers. There's also a wonderful bonus in the form of Gene Rodgers' boogie woogie number which the pianist delivers with the same vitality and enthusiasm that's so characteristic of the rest of this surprisingly good production.

Leofwine_draca SHOOT TO KILL is a low budget film noir with some thriller aspects, including a fun night-time car chase, some bits of characters being stalked through dark streets, and character suspense. The story starts with a criminal being sentenced to prison but blaming the district attorney for framing him. Shortly afterwards the DA falls for a woman who may have ulterior motives, while a crusading reporter also gets mixed up in the story. Truth be told this is a cheap little affair with few surprises in store, but it's short and to the point and the story just about hangs together.

Terrell-4 When the police reach the site of the car crash, a car they've been chasing through the night and exchanging gunfire with, they find Lawrence Dale, the man who will become District Attorney in the morning, his wife Marian, and the notorious gangster Dixie Logan. Dale and Logan are dead. Marian is rushed to a hospital seriously injured. What's going on? All will become clear in 64 minutes if you watch this tidy, well-constructed, low-budget programmer from 1947. The acting isn't much and neither is the dialogue, but the story is well constructed, there are lots of intriguing flashbacks and the direction is taut, unhurried and doesn't waste a minute. For a quickie with a five-day shooting schedule, Shoot to Kill is a fine example of why some people, me included, love these Forties, bottom-of-the-bill movies. The story is all about Lawrence Dale (Edmund MacDonald), a corrupt and ambitious assistant district attorney; Marian Langton (Luanna Walters, billed as Susan Walters), who shows up one morning looking for a job as Dale's secretary; and Mitch Mitchell (Russell Wade), a smart, crime-fighting reporter for The Evening Register. With the ailing DA about to step down, we quickly learn that his replacement, Dale, is in cahoots with some big-boy gangsters, and that the lot of them plan to run the town. But Dale makes a mistake. To put away Dixie Logan on a murder charge, a step that will enhance his reputation as a crime-fighter, Dale manufactures false evidence and bribes two witnesses. It's not long before Logan has busted out of jail with payback in mind. Then Dale starts getting romantic with his new secretary, a woman with a mind of her own. And to top it off, as Dale and his gangster partners plot murder, ace reporter Mitchell gets on their trail. All this could be as stale as a week-old banana-nut muffin. Shoot to Kill, however, keeps things fresh by using flashbacks, even flashbacks within flashbacks, to make all the plotting and machinations intriguing. There's even a twist at the end that's not telegraphed and yet is believable. Shoot to Kill is B-level movie-making in all its cheap glory. There's not an actor in sight who ever escaped the low-budget movie mill. Even some of their stories have a kind of B-movie quality. Russell Wade, for instance, was never much of an actor in all the movies he made, most of them in unbilled parts and then as a lead. Still, he had a friendly, likable personality. When he was 31, a year after this movie, Wade packed it in as an actor and became a highly successful real estate man in Palm Springs. Luanna Walters, on the other hand, after years of trying and not succeeding to break out of B-movie purgatory (she played the female interest in a lot of westerns), died of alcoholism when she was 51. Where's Nicole Kidman when we need her, to star in The Luanna Walters Story? Sadly, the movie, Wade and Walters have been long forgotten.

Hitchcoc Better than most of the low budget thrillers, this is fun because it involves a series of flashbacks which explain why a woman has been badly injured due to her connection with a corrupt district attorney. The story is pretty well put forward with a minimum of stereotyping. The woman is really a fireball, putting herself in harm's way over and over. It's odd she survived as long as she did. Most of the characters are bad guys with their own agendas. There is some double crossing and an effort to expose a frame-up. I felt the ending was pretty well done, which isn't always the case in this genre. The acting is quite good because the bad guys are presented as human beings, with human failings and emotions. Not that they aren't pretty evil and pretty cold. It's worth a look.