Kid Glove Killer

The B-film’s important role as a lower risk stage for testing new talent is showcased in the striking directorial debut of Austrian émigré Fred Zinnemann and the first starring role for Van Heflin. A taut police procedural film, KID GLOVE KILLER was an expansion of an episode from MGM’s long-running shorts series CRIME DOES NOT PAY, two-reeler cautionary tales that traced the birth, evolution and successful extermination by a police agency of a wide range of criminal activities and enterprises, from drunk driving and embezzlement to counterfeiting and smuggling. Here Van Heflin is a wise-cracking and casually sexist forensic criminologist pitted against a corrupt District Attorney and rival for the affection of his lab assistant Marsha Hunt who suddenly finds herself caught in the middle of a tense cat-and-mouse game. Writer John C. Higgins imparts KID GLOVE KILLER with rich details of forensic crime work that point towards his effcient police procedural screenplays for Anthony Mann (T-MEN, HE WALKED BY NIGHT, BORDER INCIDENT). (Haden Guest)