The Killer Is Loose

Detective Sam Wagner’s job is never easy. But this is no ordinary stressful day for Wagner (Joseph Cotten, The Third Man) or his wife Lila (Rhonda Fleming, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral). After pegging a recent bank robbery as an inside job orchestrated by the deceptively mild-mannered, bespectacled clerk Leon Poole (Wendell Corey, I Walk Alone), Wagner heads to the suspect’s apartment to make a peaceable arrest. Instead, Poole’s beloved wife is accidentally killed in the crossfire of a violent shootout. Sent to prison, and believing Wagner is responsible for his wife’s death, Poole is desperate for revenge. Escape and murder soon follow with the maniacal Poole hell-bent on taking away the woman Wagner loves. Helmed by the gritty Budd Boetticher, director of Horizons West, Wings of the Hawk, Seven Men from Now and The Tall T, The Killer Is Loose takes the filmmaker’s unique visual style away from the plains and into the world of suburbia for this taut and terrifying noir thriller. Close your windows, lock your doors—The Killer Is Loose!