User Reviews

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.

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.

In the late 40s, director Richard Fleischer was given the opportunity to direct a series of "B-list" film noirs including The Clay Pigeon. Typically a picture such as this, which only ran little more than an hour, was placed on the "undercard" of a double bill. Fleischer was given the reins to make such pictures at the time because he was regarded as being highly competent-he later proved his mettle directing numerous "A-list" films including Compulsion (starring Orson Welles) and Fantastic Voyage.

From the get go, The Clay Pigeon draws you in-a Navy veteran. Jim Fletcher (Bill Williams) wakes up from a coma in a naval hospital suffering from partial amnesia. Soon he learns that he's about to be court martialed for treason so he skedaddles out of the hospital, seeking to find out why he's in so much trouble.

Fletcher first seeks out Mark Gregory, his old pal from the Navy; both were imprisoned by the Japanese in a prisoner-of-war camp. When he gets to what he believes is Gregory's residence, his wife, Martha (Barbara Hale) is there instead. Hale of course was famous for playing Della Street, Perry Mason's secretary, on TV for years. You get the feeling that Hale and Williams have a lot of chemistry in their scenes together-that's because they were husband and wife in real life.

Before you know it, we discover that Fletcher, due to his amnesia, was unaware that Mark was dead]. Martha unsuccessfully attempts to call the police but Fletcher knocks her out and then forces her to drive him to Los Angeles where he can contact his other buddy from the prisoner-of-war camp, Ted Niles (Richard Quine).

Perhaps the weakest part of the script is the idea that Martha would so easily change her negative attitude toward Fletcher. This occurs when the couple is being chased by two unknown thugs on the way to Los Angeles. After escaping this threat, Fletcher makes contact with Niles and learns why he's wanted for treason: apparently he was blamed for snitching on Gregory who stole food from a pantry and subsequently was beaten to death by a cruel Japanese guard.

The tension ramps up when Fletcher spots that very Japanese guard-now working here in the U.S.-and unsuccessfully tries to detain him. Eventually there's an even bigger twist with Niles revealed as the real snitch and behind the plot to do Fletcher in. While the sadistic former guard Tokoyama (Richard Loo), referred as "The Weasel" during the war, appears to be a bit of a stereotyped villain, screenwriter Carl Foreman, way ahead of his time, balances things out when he has Fletcher hiding from the bad guys in the apartment of a Japanese-American widow--whose husband received the Distinguished Service Cross while serving in the 442nd Infantry Division, consisting of Japanese-Americans soldiers, bravely fighting in the European theater during World War II.

There's an exciting climax in which Fletcher fights both Tokoyama and Niles on a train and does them in with the assistance of local police, notified by Naval Intelligence at the last minute. The Clay Pigeon shines due to its nifty, efficient script, that clocks in at that aforementioned slightly more than an hour's running time!

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!

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.

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.)