The Walking Target packs a lot of people and a lot of plot into its brief 74 minutes running time. That is a feature not a bug. It’s a story about a man freshly out of prison who is, as the prison governor tells Nick Harbin (Ron Foster) while reluctantly releasing him, a “walking target”. Because he’s never divulged where the heist money was stashed that got him the jail sentence in the first place.
As he heads out through the front gates of the prison there they all are waiting for him. The girlfriend, Susie (Merry Anders), who visited him only once while he did his five-year stretch but now wants to get the show back on the road – of course she does! A cop (Harp McGuire) keen to track down the secreted money. And a reporter (James Callahan) with a nose for a story that never found its happy ending. In widening circles there are others with an interest in Nick – meaning the loot. His old right hand man, Davey Prince (Robert Christopher) who has been both carrying on with Susie while Nick has been inside. Davey has also been getting pally with gangster “businessman” Arnie Hoffman (Berry Kroeger), another one with plans to relieve Nick of all that money. Even further out is Gail Russo (Joan Evans), the widow of Sam, who died on the job that netted Nick all that money. Maybe Nick feels beholden to her. Maybe they once had a thing going.
There are a lot of improper associations, misalliances and shonky relationships in this movie. Nearly everyone is lying to everyone else the whole way through. Who to trust? The character of Harbin, good with his fists and perhaps a bit of a psychopath, adds a psychological wonkiness to the story, which the score by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter emphasises at crunch moments – blaring, strident.
The film was made in 1960 and is quite late for film noir, which is what it is, though arguments are bound to break out about that. Evans and Anders are well cast as widow Gail and bad girl Susie, the former next-doorish, the latter falling out of her clothes for much of the film. The good and bad girls of noir. And the film is concerned with justice and retribution and even redemption, which admittedly isn’t normally where noirs go.
The story is a good one, with enough energy in its set-up to bounce it over any bumps en route to the unusual finish. It’s by Stephen Kandel, who was primarily a TV writer – big shows like Star Trek, Batman, Dynasty, Wonder Woman and The Dukes of Hazzard. Direction is by Edward L Cahn, a prolific director of B movies who banged out eight films in 1960, following up with 11 in 1961. This master of the “one-week wonder” died in 1963, aged 64, possibly of exhaustion, but he’s full of life here, driving the film forward constantly and never wallowing. There’s even a car chase – one of those where big cars of the period belly around corners.
Throughout there’s the question not just about the money but Nick’s motivation. Is he simply greedy? Or is revenge also a factor? Love? Guilt? This makes for an interesting character study which Foster sanely does not ruin with semaphore flags. In fact he’s a much better actor than the bare-bones Wikipedia and B movie roles would suggest.
This is also a better movie than you might expect. Made on the cheap and in a hurry, but at least everyone knew what they were doing and they had a good, sound screenplay to work from. A target worth hitting.
The Walking Target – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
