Murder By Contract is a film noir thriller that was released in 1958. Irving Lerner is the director with Ben Simcoe listed as writer. Vince Edwards plays a somewhat philosophical hit man named Claude saving up to buy a house. Phillip Pine, Herschel Bernadi, and Caprice Toriel are also part of the cast.
Claude is a contract killer who doesn’t use a gun but dispatches his victims in a variety of ways. After proving his efficiency at the beginning of the film, two men hire him to kill a witness set to testify in a high profile trial. Claude is somewhat hesitant when he learns his latest target is a woman. Claude is an interesting character in that he would be described as am existentialist. He has a somewhat perplexing moment where he snaps at a hotel server for an apparently lack of ambition or something and still gives him a fairly generous gratuity.
Claude is a somewhat interesting character. The movie is acclaimed for being somewhat stripped down to basic movie making or something. The soundtrack is pretty simple with a repetitive guitar riff throughout the film. The film has moments where it drags a bit though. There are some interesting moments, but the ending didn’t really satisfy all that much. I do appreciate the effort to see what could be done with the most basic elements of film making. I am not sure if I need to see this movie again in order to appreciate something that I missed, but the first viewing didn’t exactly leave me in a rush to make another attempt.
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