The Clay Pigeon (1949) watch online HD

This is a short and very gripping B movie. It hasn't got an ounce of fat and offers the highest possible viewing pleasure. Story and script are by Carl Foreman who wrote the screenplay for High Noon. Strange as it may sound, one of the major assets of The Clay Pigeon is a cast which consists of little known actresses and actors.

There are several movies of the period which start with a war veteran who wakes up in an army or navy hospital with amnesia. In this case, the young man does know who he is and where he was, but he has no idea why he is accused of treason. Everybody in the hospital lets him feel that he should be hanged after he gets well. The strong and scary opening sequence has him sleeping as hands stretch out for his face from outside the frame, fingering it tentatively while he opens his eyes in astonishment, then sliding down to his throat in an attempt to strangle him before a nurse intervenes. They belong to a blinded veteran who wants to know „how a traitor looks like".

The accused escapes from the hospital and tries to find out what it is all about, aided by the widowed wife of a war buddy (strong performance by Barbara Hale). He finds out that the alleged treason refers to his time as a POW in a Japanese camp; he is said to have ratted on other prisoners who stole food rations, just in order not to starve. He also remembers being beaten savagely by a sadistic Japanese warden called the Weasel. A whole landscape of scars on his chest tell from this ordeal. „But now you're as strong as an ox again", the woman who helps him says encouragingly, „and just as dumb", he adds.

The search directs the couple to L.A.'s Chinatown, and much of that part of the movie was filmed on location. To his surprise the veteran spots the Weasel who is already well established within the local gangland. The movie then builds up to a dramatic finale on a train – with a much better set design than in Fleischer's Narrow Margin – and a happy ending.

As the title suggests, The Clay Pigeon is a full fledged film noir. The movie has a very good script (although it sometimes stretches credibility) and a surprisingly rich imagery (night scenes on roads and in towns, a trailer beach colony, different locations in downtown L.A., including Chinatown). I suppose its message is above the ordinary political (the GI who waits for his court martial while a „real" former war criminal is alive and well and living in California, the veteran's open distrust of the institutions the hints of a connection between the openly criminal world and the „serious" business community as shown after the veteran's visit in a real estate agency).

It seems The Clay Pigeon is a film that waits to be rediscovered. It stands its own in the genre (and is not even mentioned in the Silver/Ward Film Noir Encyclopedia). I can recommend it.

Excellent 'B' noir - from the memorable opening sequence of a close-up of a sleeping man's face, with a couple of hands entering the frame to strangle him, to the exciting train-ride climax, which curiously anticipates the director's own THE NARROW MARGIN (1952) - with a topical, Hitchcockian plot of an amnesiac war veteran, accused of treason and of being party to murder, who goes on the run to prove his innocence. Despite unknown leads (including Bill Williams and Barbara Hale, a married couple in real-life and the parents of BUTCH AND SUNDANCE: THE EARLY DAYS [1979] star William Katt, which I unwittingly watched the very same day, and future director Richard Quine!), it's very stylishly handled by an expert in the genre, with special care given to the hero's hallucinatory flashes of his harrowing experiences in a Japanese P.O.W. camp.

When Bill Williams comes out of a coma at a Naval hospital in Long Beach, he knows who he is but doesn't know why he's there. But he overhears staff talking about his impending court-martial for treason: Apparently he snitched on his fellow Americans in a Japanese prison-camp, leading to their deaths by torture. No fool he, he grabs some civvies and slips out the door, headed to San Diego and the widow (Barbara Hale) of one of his dead buddies.

She's understandably unhappy to see him and even more so when he binds and gags her, then heads north to Los Angeles in her car, with her in it. When pursuers almost run them off the road and down a ravine, she starts to believe his story about being innocent. In L.A., he enlists the aid of another survivor (Richard Quine), who advises him to lay low as the `Old Lady' (the Navy) is watching them both.

Then one evening in the White Lotus, a `chop-suey joint' oddly run by Japanese, he spots among them the most sadistic of the guards, nicknamed `the Weasel.' Soon he finds himself the fall guy, or clay pigeon, in a transpacific scheme to launder millions in counterfeit currency printed in anticipation of Japanese victory and occupation. Its operations come very close to him....

The Clay Pigeon is another of the trim and stripped-down noir thrillers churned out by Richard Fleischer in the post-war years. While not as deftly worked out as Armored Car Robbery or The Narrow Margin, it clocks in at just over an hour and delivers the goods. Its stars, Williams and Hale, were married at the time and would remain so until his death. Among their children is actor William Katt (Williams' birth name), the spit-and-image of his dad. Hale, of course, had a long run as Perry Mason's gal Friday, and Raymond Burr named an orchid he cultivated after her - not Della Street, but Barbara Hale.

Richard Fleischer who would direct "Barabbas" "fantastic voyage" and "the Boston strangler,not exactly low budget efforts already proves with "clay pigeon" he was a great director from the start.One has sometimes the strange impression to watch a "Mandchurian candidate" in miniature .A nightmarish atmosphere ,a true film noir where trains and cars belt in the night,where an amnesic hero has to fight an unknown enemy .It's really a tour de force to pack so much action (and much of what happens works behind the scenes) in a very short flick (about an hour).The last scenes on the train were probably influenced by Hitchcock's "shadow of a doubt" .This little gem should not be missed.

This is a hot one. It is brilliantly written by Carl Foreman and directed by Dick Fleischer, a potent pair of talents. Although it is a B picture, it is certainly a top B. Bill Williams gets a rare chance to star in a film, and he does an excellent job of it. This is a typical postwar noir film about soldiers who have returned scarred from the War. It is an amnesia film, and those are always great fun: a guy wakes up in hospital, he can't remember what happened, he has to piece it all together before it is too late, and the clock is ticking. How many times have we seen that plot? And yet it never pales and is always intriguing, because the processes of lost memory are always compelling, especially when there is danger. Richard Quine and Richard Loo both shine in their respective roles, Loo as a totally convincing Japanese baddie and Quine as a strangely effete case of 'who knows what his game is', who as the film progresses has a great talent for de-focusing and looking aside in a guilty manner. There is an early cameo by the young Martha Hyer. The dame is Barbara Hale, and she has an excellent part which she fills admirably. She starts out by hating Williams because she thought he killed her husband in a Jap prison camp. However, things get murkier and murkier, and the plot is marvellously convoluted, the pace terrific, and the whole film has a breathtaking tension and is superbly done. Who needs big budgets?

When the Navy sailor Jim Fletcher (Bill Williams) awakes from a two-year coma in a hospital in San Diego, he overhears a conversation of his doctor and his nurse and learns that he will face a court martial, accused of treason for snitching fellow POWs that were stealing food in a Japanese camp in World War II. He decides to flee from the hospital and seek out his friend Mark Gregory to help him to clear his name. However he meets the widow Martha Gregory (Barbara Hale) and learns that Mark is dead. He calls his other friend Ted Niles (Richard Quine) that promises to help him, Jim needs to travel to Los Angeles to meet Ted. Martha is forced to help him and while driving her car to Los Angeles, two men in another car try to throw them off road. Martha convinces of his innocence and when they go to Chinatown, Jim sees the most brutal guard in the camp, Ken "The Weasel" Tokoyama (Richard Loo). Now he feels that The Weasel may be the means to find what really happened in the camp and he stumbles upon a huge conspiracy.

"The Clay Pigeon" is a film-noir based on a true story despite the flawed but pleasant and tense screenplay. The coincidences and the happy ending make the story hard to believe. The chemistry of Bill Williams and Barbara Hale is fantastic and the resemblance of Bill Williams with his son William Katt is amazing. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Alma em Sombras" ("Soul in Shadows")

I'm not sure if Bill Williams and Barbara Hale were married at the time The Clay Pigeon was being made. Certainly their chemistry was apparent and is the best thing about the film.

The film with barely an hour and a quarter running time did not have much time for plot development. Basically Bill Williams is a sailor who developed hysterical amnesia while in a POW camp in the Pacific. He comes out of a two year coma and learns he's to be tried for treason. He's been accused of selling out his fellow prisoners while in Japanese custody. Worse than that, he's accused of murdering one of his best friends while a POW.

For a guy just coming out of a coma, Williams is a pretty agile person though he does retrogress at times. He heads for the widow of the man he's supposed to have murdered who is Barbara Hale. She's real reluctant to help him, but later when someone tries to kill them both she becomes a willing accomplice.

Given the limited amount of characters in the film, there wasn't a terrible lot of suspense for me. In fact I figured out who was behind it about a third into the film, it was that obvious to the audience, but not to Williams. To be fair there were reasons why he wouldn't consider the possibility of what actually was going on.

It was also just too too coincidental that he happened to run into the chief nemesis of the POWs, a sergeant who is played by Richard Loo whom they find in LA's Chinatown.

The film had a lot of potential, it was a good idea, but it needed a far better script and direction.

Reasonably well directed with a nightmare atmosphere to it, the film looks fairly good in the stark black and white, but it is quite a routine noir thriller overall however, with predictable events and situations all the way through. The flashbacks used have an interesting, artistic style to them, but there is little else of note here. The acting and technical aspects are only adequate, and the plot is nothing special, in many ways similar to a Hitchcock thriller, even though Hitch would have made it more exciting and intriguing had he been at the helm. But, at the very least, the film has an appropriately compact running time, which leads to it rarely feeling like it is overly drawn out.

The only weakness in THE CLAY PIGEON is that it's easy to spot the real fall guy--and the viewer knows it's not BILL WILLIAMS. The real culprit telegraphs his guilt in what are supposed to be subtle hints, but anyone who is a fan of film noir will spot the villain right away.

Otherwise, it's a good little post-war thriller, not an A-film but just as tense and intriguing as any of the big films about amnesia victims who went through harrowing things during the war that they prefer to forget. Only gradually do we learn more about Williams' torturous experience and what really happened is far different than we supposed.

BARBARA HALE is excellent in a well-written role as his helpmate, at first thinking he did cause the death of her husband in a prisoner of war camp, but later realizing that she's willing to do all she can to help him clear his name.

Since Hale and Williams were a married couple at the time (they're the parents of William Katt who looks so much like his dad), they have a good chemistry with each other right from the start.

This is the kind of post-war film noir that RKO did so well, usually with stars like Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer or Kirk Douglas. But Williams and Hale are excellent in the leads and the story moves briskly toward an exciting climax where the villains are about to toss him in front of an oncoming train.

Enjoyable vehicle of this kind, well worth catching.

Starts off well as amnesiac vet (Williams) is chased by mysterious forces including not so mysterious Naval Intelligence. Now he's got to unravel the puzzle before it catches up to him. Good thing he gets help from dead buddy's wife (Hale). That chase sequence from San Diego to LA is particularly well done, and in good noirish fashion. Then too, the fight in Hale's apartment almost had me yelling for help. Only a devoted married couple like Williams and Hale could make it so physically realistic. However, once events locate in LA, the story settles into a more familiar pattern.

Unfortunately, a compromised script prevents the promising start from reaching front rank. Paradoxically, the screenplay is from ace writer Carl Foreman (High Noon; Bridge on the River Kwai, et al). I can only surmise that the brief running time (63-minutes) and a tight B-movie shooting schedule forced him to compromise the narrative in implausible fashion. For example—Hale's quick turnaround with escaped fugitive Williams, especially when she thinks he's responsible for her husband's death; the chance encounter with Japanese ex-prison guard Richard Loo; the cops unexplained boarding of the train in the middle of nowhere when they planned to wait in Glendale; but most of all, the angelic mother who allows a fugitive stranger she's just let in the door to hide in the same room as her infant son.

These devices may expedite the plot, but they also come across as just that, plot devices-- too many, in my view, for what is also a pretty dense narrative. At the same time, guessing the mystery's real culprit becomes pretty easy, thereby undermining the suspense. Also, director Fleischer shows little of the personal engagement that distinguishes his other noirs. All in all, the movie adds up to an average programmer that unfortunately promises more than it delivers.

Bill Williams was a reliable actor who specialised in "nice guy" roles. His main claim to fame was his marriage to Barbara Hale (TV's Della Street) and after their marriage they were paired in films like "A Likely Story" and "The Clay Pigeon". "The Clay Pigeon" was a better than average programmer with class A credentials - director Richard Fleisher (he later directed "Compulsion" and "The Boston Strangler") and screenwriter Carl Foreman ("Champion" and "The Men").

Seaman James Fletcher (Bill Williams) awakes in the United States Naval Hospital from a coma, to find hostility among the staff - one of the other patients even tries to strangle him. He can't understand why then overhears he is to be charged with treason. He knows, deep down, he could not have been guilty of such a crime and escapes to try to find out the truth. His memory starts to return and he looks up an old friend - Mark Gregory. He is made welcome by Martha Gregory (Barbara Hale) but he happens to see an article in the papers - police are searching for him in connection with Mark Gregory's death!!! After a tussle with Martha - she had been secretly trying to ring the police, he gets in contact with Ted Niles (Richard Quine) - the three of them had called "The Three Musketeers" during the War, and Ted grudgingly agrees to help him. Williams plays James in a very aggressive way - I can understand Martha's reluctance to believe him at first.

Something doesn't add up and it doesn't take long to realise who the real villain is - James and Martha are deliberately run off the road when they are on their way to Ted's. James is also experiencing black- outs and flashbacks. He was tortured and flogged by a Japanese prison guard, nicknamed "The Weasel" (Richard Loo, who was kept pretty busy during the 1940s, playing assorted POW guards and heavies). They finally get to L.A. but while at a Chinese restaurant James sees "The Weasel" and also encounters the same two goons who tried to run them off the road. They still count Ted as their friend and he tells them he will put a private detective on "The Weasel's" trail - or does he!!!

This is an excellent little film and for 63 minutes the pace doesn't let up. Beautiful Barbara Hale had quite a dramatic role that required more of her than being mere set decoration. Richard Quine had been a child actor but had turned his talents to directing as well as acting. He was also married to the tragic Susan Peters. Martha Hyer had one of her early bits, as a brunette, as Miss Harwick, Wheeler's receptionist.

Recommended.

I get what the other reviewer is saying here about "too many plot devices" but that only really bothers me now that I sit and think about it. The movie itself moved along quick. Good story, good acting. Just a fun way to waste an hour and a half. Don't think about it too much and you'll enjoy it just fine.

The Clay Pigeon is directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Carl Foreman. It stars Bill Williams, Barbara Hale, Richard Quine and Richard Loo. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by Robert De Grasse.

Jim Fletcher (Williams) is a survivor of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp who awakes from a coma with amnesia, and a charge of treason against him! Escaping hospital he aims to recover his memory and hopefully clear his name. The secret may be with another ex-POW inmate and the wife of the man who was killed on account of his supposed treason.

Stripped down to the bare essentials by Fleischer, The Clay Pigeon is a one hour TV episode in essence. Dealing in that old noir favourite, that of amnesia, the director doesn't hang around to build any sort of supporting characters. This is firmly a two character piece as Williams and Hale (real life husband and wife) run through a narrative that has her initially hostile towards him, only to then unsurprisingly warm to him as events conveniently fall into place to prove his innocence.

There's a willingness to balance out the anti Japanese slant that initially hangs over the story, and a twist in the tale, whilst hardly a surprise, earns writer Carl Foreman some grace to forgive the poor contrivances elsewhere. The night time sequences are nicely noirish, without really adding any sort of psychological dimension to the atmospherics, and the cast are adequate as per the quality of production. All told it's an enjoyable enough B-level noir out of RKO, even if it's hardly essential viewing. 6/10

**SPOILERS** Snappy little known film noir thriller involving amnesia victim US Navy man and former Japanese POW inmate Jim Fletcher, Bill Williams. It's Fletcher who's to stand trial for treason as soon as he's recovered enough to be released from the Naval Hospital he's a patient in.

Were kept in the dark to exactly what Fletcher did until he escapes from the hospital and gets in touch with is best friends Matt's, and fellow Japanese POW, wife Martha Gregory, Barbara Hale. It's through Martha that Fletcher expects to find out just what all the fuss is about him being a traitor to his country! It's then that we find out that it was Matt whom Fletcher was reported to have turned over to the Japanese for stealing food out of the POW camps mess hall! For that "herrndous" crime Matt was both tortured and executed by the Japs for not only theft but wanton disrespect for the mighty Japanese Empire and its God-like leader Emperor Hirohito!

Not for one moment believing, but just playing along with him, a word of what Fletcher says about him being innocent in her husbands death Martha is later convinced in that he's telling the truth when both her and Fletcher are almost run off the road, after he kidnapped her, by these two thugs who were tailing them. It's later when o the lamb when both Martha and Fletcher are dining in this L,A Chinese Restaurant, the White Lotus, that the truth comes out to what all this mystery of Fletcher being a traitor to his country is really all about! That's when the owner non other then Ken "the Weasel" Tokoyama, Richard Loo, dropped in to pick up the weekly receipts! It was the Weasel who was in charge of the Japanese prison camp that Fletcher and Matt were held in! Not only that it's the Weasel who can prove Fletcher's innocence by exposing the real traitor who ratted out Matt, in him raiding the camp mess hall, to his Japanese captors!

Had hitting thriller with the confused, due to his amnesia, Jim Fletcher on the run and at the same time trying to find out the truth to who set him up in being accused in turning in his best friend Matt Gregory to the Japanese who later had him executed! The only chance, besides the Weasel, that Fetcher has to prove his innocence is to contact his friend and former POW Ted Niles, Richard Quinn,in L.A who can prove that he was in fact a "Good Joe" who stuck by his fellow POWS through thick & thin. That's in Niles himself being together with both Fletcher and Matt in the Jap prison camp and knowing that he wouldn't under any circumstances, even the threat of death, turn over his friends, like Matt and himself, to the Japs to be tortured and executed!

***SPOILERS*** The film gets even more stranger when it comes out that the Weasel is now, four years after the war, working with the L.A mob in a plan to get their hands on some 100 million dollars of US counterfeit currency that was stashed, before the attack on Pearl Harbr, in a secret safe house by the Japanese Government to be used to undermine the US economy when the war broke out! Heart-stopping final as Fletcher now held hostage by the Weasel and one of his accomplices fights for his life in preventing the Weasel & Co. from throwing him off a speeding train that he was tricked into boarding!

Our hero's a creep, comes off obnoxious and entitled--treats the lady like trash . . . yet . . . she believes he didn't really murder her husband in the Japanese prison camp and so will help him because . . . because he's such a jewel? And the Japanese torturer just happens to go to a CHINESE restaurant at the same exact moment our hero and his deluded lady friend are eating there! How'd he get into the U.S.? A couple of nice touches amid the tedious unfolding: 1) The above-mentioned Chinese restaurant in L.A.'s Chinatown seemed authentic (maybe even location?). By the way, our hero and lady stiffed the restaurant--they ran out without paying (he could've tossed some bucks on the table--always a cool maneuver and one I like to employ myself wherever possible). 2) Very moving was the exchange with the Japanese mom about her son who died fighting in the 442nd Regiment. (I'm glad the lady got an acting gig, but where was Anna May Wong? She would've been perfect.)

It's never good in these type of mysteries when the viewer gets way ahead of the protagonist. It's even worse when the clues are slapping the fall guy, the clay pigeon, in the face and yet he still can't see them. Bill Williams and Barbara Hale keep getting ambushed by murderous thugs. Only one guy, Williams's fellow ex-POW, Dick Quine, knows where they are because Williams keeps calling him on the phone. Yet neither Williams nor Hale tumbles upon the idea that maybe the bad guys always know where to find them because Quine is tipping them off. Duh! And then there's the wild coincidence of Williams running into his old Japanese prison camp guard within a couple of hours after they arrive in Los Angeles. Worse, this Japanese guy seems to be an insider within the local Chinese community, even though the Chinese and Japanese hated each other (google Nanking). The only real pleasure here was spending time at the China City Plaza in L.A.'s Chinatown.