The Sniper is an unfortunately prescient film noir that tracks the loner Edward Miller (Arthur Franz), whose misogyny drives him to murder a series of San Francisco women in what seem like random shootings.
From the beginning, it’s very clear that 1) every encounter with a woman pushes Miller’s buttons, and 2) he is trying to control a compulsion to shoot them.
When ER doctor treating him for a burn asks, “Can I ask you a question? Were you ever in a mental institution?”, Miller replies, “Only when I was in prison – in the psycho ward.” Uh oh.
Understandable public hysteria triggers a manhunt, led by a seasoned detective lieutenant (Adolphe Menjou) and his snarky assistant (Gerald Mohr), a guy who is never witty but thinks he is. The embattled police chief is played by Frank Faylen (cabbie Ernie in It’s a Wonderful Life). The cops don’t understand who they are looking for or how to track him down.
If The Sniper is any indication, the SFPD’s police methods of communications, investigation and crowd control were very primitive in 1952.
A police psychologist (Richard Kiley) educates the cops about the killer’s profile, and they finally close in. The weakest part of The Sniper is a talky “message picture” segment where the psychologist tries to convince some civic dinosaurs that the mentally ill need treatment to keep them from killing the rest of us. It’s as lame as the Simon Oakland epilogue lecture in Psycho.
It’s notable that The Sniper was released in 1952, before “active shooter” was a thing. This was 14 years before the Texas Tower shootings and 16 years before Peter Bogdanovich’s similarly-themed fictional narrative Targets. The Zodiac Killer, a real life anonymous serial killer who communicated directly with the police, first struck 16 years after The Sniper (and also terrorized the Bay Area).
The Sniper is also an early exploration of misogynistic attitudes and violence. Even the casual remarks from the folks on the street illustrate unconsciously sexist attitudes on gender.
The Sniper depends on the performance by Arthur Franz, and he is excellent. Of course, he gets to play full psycho, but he is best when he is observing women and silently registering disgust and repulsion. With his countenance otherwise placid, the look in Franz’s eyes changes at the instant that he is triggered into antipathy; you can see him thinking Bitch! Slut! This performance is Franz’s career topper.
I had a vague recollection of Franz, but couldn’t place his other screen work, which was primarily in amiable supporting roles. Franz was the young corporal who narrates The Sands of Iwo Jima, a young ship’s officer in The Caine Mutiny and had a supporting turn in the fine Fritz Lang/Dana Andrews noir Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. But most of his 152 screen credits came in 1950s and 1960s television, including five guest appearances in Perry Mason.
The most dazzling performance in The Sniper is Marie Windsor’s as one of Miller’s laundry delivery customers, the singer in a bar. Windsor is at her most charismatic; her sexy charm, however, is exactly what rubs Miller the wrong way.
Menjou is solid, but these are not Mohr’s or Faylen’s best performances. Jay Novello sparkles in a very small role as the tavern owner who employs Marie Windsor’s songstress.
The Sniper is directed by the accomplished Edward Dmytryk (Murder My Sweet, Crossfire, The Hidden Room, The Caine Mutiny). Dmytryk elevates the tension with dramatic shots from the sniper’s and victim’s points of view. Dmytryk even gets a lttle showy when Miller shoots someone and the fatal bullet breaks the glass on her publicity poster.
The San Francisco locations are superbly detailed in the blog ReelSF, an essential for Bay Area cinephiles. (However, the boardwalk carnival was shot in Southern California, not at San Francisco’s Playland-at-the-Beach.)
The Sniper is very hard to find. It is not available to stream, and I needed to buy the French DVD. The Sniper was presented at the 2022 Noir City film festival.
