Murder by Contract

Irving Lerner’s quirky, jazzy Murder by Contract is a stylized Beat Generation noir featuring a cool-headed contract killer named Claude, played by a young and hunky Vince Edwards (who would later find fame as television’s Dr. Ben Casey). Claude’s no run-of-the-mill hitman: he carries no gun, waxes philosophical, and prides himself on having strict moral principles. He’s supremely confident (“Be a good boy and dry my back,” he tells one of his colleagues), but his efforts are frustrated when he’s hired to eliminate a key witness in a high-profile trial, a woman hiding out in her California house guarded by cops around the clock. Despite several creative attempts, Claude struggles for a successful hit, which forces him to up the ante. Screenwriter Ben Simcoe imbues Claude’s moral ambiguity with an accidental comedic streak, a tone that quite possibly influenced Quentin Tarantino decades later.