Out In The Film Noir Night- American Pyscho #234- Dial 1119

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Dial 1119, starring Marshall Thompson, MGM, 1950

Yes, I know, know very well, that 1119 is not now the police emergency number and that 911 is the place to call lately so this must be an old film but let’s not get sidetracked here because whatever the number to call is another American psycho is on the loose and that first number is going to come into play before the end of this one. Homicidal maniac Marshall Thompson is on the loose again after having escaped from the institution for the criminally insane that he was place in on his spree and the citizenry of Terminal City, a city that already had witnessed Thompson’s maniacal work, are in eminent danger.

See Thompson has a bee in his bonnet about a local police psychologist who kept him out of prison and in the institution on that previous spree. And one thing we know from a whole line of such cinematic types is that once they get that one big idea in their heads nothing, and I mean nothing, short of a fatal bullet is going to stop them. And that was the case here in this almost claustrophobic little drama as it played out mainly in a local barroom, the Oasis, where Thompson encamped, waiting on that cop shrink. Of course he already had one death under his belt even before the wait having killed the bus driver who brought him to fair Terminal City for his gun in order to do his dirty work.

The bodies begin to really pile up from there once the bartender who has the television on for the patrons noticed that Thompson was the guy the cops were looking for on the bus drive r shooting. So he shoots the bartender and that is where things get tense. The four patrons and the assistant bartender in the place are transformed into hostages, as cannon fodder really, in case Thompson needs them as cover for some escape. After he sees Doc. Problem is Doc’s was not coming because the head of the police rescue squad was unhappy about his role in Thompson’s previous spree. After a few more shooting though, including that of Doc who busted his way into the bar on his own hook, Thompson’s luck ran out, ran out fast, as he left the bar in a hail of police gun-fire after one of the hostages got brave. And thus one more American film psycho got what was coming to him. And we get a taut little B-drama in glorious black and white and a decent performance from most of the cast in this ensemble production, especially from the woe begotten hostages in the bar.