MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955)

If we were going to debate the film noir credibility of Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1955 picture Murder is My Beat, the argument would hinge upon whether or not Barbara Payton’s character, Eden Lane, is a proper femme fatale. If you read up on the picture, that subject seems to be the jazz. Payton’s Lane gets mixed up with some shady underworld types trying to work a blackmail scheme, and next thing she knows the cops are eyeballing her for a murder. By the time all is said and done and we learn she’s innocent, Detective Ray Patrick (Paul Langton) has already pissed his career down the drain in order to keep her out of Tehachapi. From one point of view it’s easy to say Murder is My Beat misses as a film noir because Eden Lane turns out to be a good girl — that’s an easy, uncomplicated position to take (and believe me, plenty have taken it). I’m not so sure though. One of the significant characteristics of noir is a milieu that is all at once complicated, uncertain, chaotic, and morally ambiguous. With this in mind is it not then enough to consider Beat a film noir simply because Detective Patrick gives up everything for a girl he thinks might be guilty? Whether Eden Lane is pure evil or merely pure turns out to be irrelevant — her power isn’t moral, it’s entirely sexual. Patrick doesn’t trip over his own feet to help her because she’s innocent — he just wants to score. That in the final equation she turns out to be innocent is, for him, nothing more than dumb luck — considering the fate of film noir protagonists who made similar choices, Patrick gets off lucky.


Make no mistake Murder is My Beat is a second-rate picture. Were it not for the presence of an interesting, much talked about director and an infamous leading lady the film would simply vanish into the haze — there’d be very little of substance left to make film aficionados seek it out. Paul Langton’s presence doesn’t help. If ever there were a guy less suited to take the lead in a feature film it’s him. Despite a long career as a character actor on a million different forgotten television dramas, Murder is My Beat represents one of Langton’s only starring roles, and he doesn’t make good. A tedious actor with a dead face and zero charisma, Langton comes off like a sack of potatoes in a JC Penney suit — the best thing about him is his haircut. Harold Wellman’s cinematography is equally unimaginative, though he at least could blame the film’s miserable budget. In Wellman’s defense many of the second unit shots are pretty good, in particular the naturally lit exteriors. There are some strong shots of period LA, including the ubiquitous City Hall building. There’s little to say on behalf of the interiors though — all shot with a single harsh light source against washed out, over-exposed backgrounds. Nevertheless, Murder is My Beat is a noir picture in spite of its lack of distinctive visual style.


So much has been made of Edgar G. Ulmer’s career, and rightfully so. While Murder is My Beat can’t be held up alongside Ruthless, Detour, or even The Strange Woman, it does offer some explanation of what made him a precious commodity on Poverty Row. Take for instance the train scene, in which Detective Patrick finally gives himself over to keeping Lane out of jail. The entire scene is played out on a single set, with the would-be lovers sitting opposite each other as a rear-projection landscape dances by through the window. The two spend the scene in conversation, but Ulmer uses a clever trick to keep things on the cheap: instead of showing the actors talking, he just as often shows them listening. He most likely shot the scene with two cameras — one for each actor, filming the speaker and the listener at the same time. In the finished movie the scene plays out in an unexpected way: we often see the listener while only hearing the speaker — we see Patrick’s passive face while hearing Lane’s spoken dialogue. The technique allowed Ulmer to correct himself in the cutting room and save quite a lot of time and money. If he didn’t like something about the actor’s expression or delivery, he’d just cut to the other person listening. If necessary he could even change the script and record different dialogue after shooting the scene.



Much has been written about how exploitative and cruel the Hollywood studio system was in its heyday, particularly concerning starlets. Actresses such as Barbara Payton, Gail Russell, and Frances Farmer are whipped out and dusted off as sad illustrations of beautiful and talented young women devoured by an insatiable machine. While it is true that show business is unkind to those who can’t cope with criticism and rejection (among other things), it’s also fair to say that self-destructive people tend to self-destruct regardless of their circumstances — it just makes for better gossip when it happens in Malibu. Yet the Barbara Payton story is certainly a sad one (if not quite on par with Russell’s). Payton turned to alcohol, drugs, and even prostitution after (or, if you like, because) her Hollywood star had fallen. Russell was a depressive who suffered from stage fright and abused substances in order to get up for her roles. Her star peaked all too soon. Murder is My Beat was Payton’s final grasp at the screen. She never had much of a career, and was known primarily for an ill-conceived and violent marriage with A-lister Franchot Tone. By the time she made this picture her M.O. was a shallow riff on Marilyn Monroe. With put-on breathiness in her voice and a puffy face she’s a shadow of the girl who starred opposite Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye just five years before. It’s clear that she’s working hard, but more telling that Ulmer regularly goes in tighter on the wooden Langton.


In the final analysis Murder is My Beat is one of those movies that is more interesting for the academic questions it poses and for the personalities involved than for anything that happens on-screen. It has its moments — like a grisly murder victim who goes face-first into a fireplace and a picture-snatcher in a dress more outrageously sexual than anything you’ve ever seen in an Eisenhower-era motion picture, but those lurid highlights arrive too early and too close together to carry the picture or capture the imagination for long.

Murder is My Beat (1955)

Director: Edgar Ulmer
Cinematographer: Harold Wellman
Screenplay: Aubrey Wisberg
Starring: Paul Langton and Barbara Payton
Released by: Allied Artists
Running time: 77 minutes