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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.

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.

Some portions of this story were inspired by a true story, though just to be clear, this is NOT a true story.

Jim Fletcher (Bill Williams) awakens in a military hospital and has no recollection of his recent past. One moment he was a prisoner of war in a hellish Japanese camp, the next he's in a hospital bed and quite a bit of time has passed. But the real serious issue here is that he's going to be court martialed for treason....and he can't recall having done anything wrong. So, he does what people like this always do in other films...he escapes in order to investigate and find out what really did happen. Along the way, he picks up a lady and she's his unwilling partner. Later, she realizes something IS going on and she helps him in his quest.

While I've seen quite a few similar sorts of films, this one is better than most. Despite being a B-movie and having lesser stars, it's well written and doesn't look cheap. In fact, it's well made from start to finish...and quite enjoyable.

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.

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")

Absolutely love classic film and have done for a long time. This is also one of my favourite genres and there has never been a bias against anything that's low budget. There are plenty of films actually that are low budget and are still good, same for films made quickly, have short lengths and not many well known names. But really it's my love for classic film and the genre that got me into watching 'The Clay Pigeon', not to mention that the plot sounded intriguing.

'The Clay Pigeon' turned out to be well executed in most areas. It is not one of the best films in the genre or of the decade (neither though expected, that would have been asking for too much in my view), and it is not perfect or completely lives up to the premise. It though is well made considering the budget and that it was made quickly, it also hardly wastes the potential it has. So if asked as to whether 'The Clay Pigeon' is recommended, my answer would be yes.

Good things are many. It is slickly and stylishly shot, with the noir-ish shadowy lighting adding to the mystery, in no way does it come over as cheap. The film is also directed at a crisp pace, even if not always in complete consistent control of the material. The music is haunting and doesn't come over as over-bearing or over-emphasised in mood.

On the most part, the script is leanly taut and smart. The story is mostly lively and suspenseful, as well as atmospheric. It has a great start as well as a nail-bitingly tense climax, while there is a moving scene with the mother's account of her son. Bill Williams and Barbara Hale are engaging leads and the supporting cast are more than able.

Do agree however that 'The Clay Pigeon' has too much going on in the story, especially in the latter stages that come over as over-stuffed and rushed. The film could have done with a longer length, 10-15 minutes longer so that parts could have gone into more depth, like the cops boarding of the train.

While liking the script on the whole, it did lose focus later and stretches credibility where things happen too much by chance and where things turn around too abruptly with no real warning. More could have been done to make the lead character more rootable, Williams plays him very well but the character himself can be on the obnoxious side.

In conclusion, pretty good. 7/10.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(1949) The Clay Pigeon SUSPENSE THRILLER

WWII vet, Jim Fletcher (Bill Williams) finally comes out of a coma from the war veterans hospital, and just when he was about to be charged for treason, regarding ratting them out for food rations to fellow POW's when he was in a Japanese prison camp. He then takes the liberty of escaping from the VA hospital he was in to exposing the actual culprits, with the help from Martha Gregory (Barbara Hale).

It was a big deal back then as a good percentage of Americans served, but it's quite tame now considering what happened during the Vietnam war and other wars from then on.

An RKO-produced movie, based on a true story, we follow the trials and tribulations of a post-war amnesic soldier suffering from PTSD who is under suspicion of treason and ratting on his fellow troops at Cabanatuan POW camp run by the Japanese army but escapes the hospital only to find that an old nemesis is trying to end him to preserve a dastardly scheme. There's intrigue, espionage-like work, action, romance and betrayal. The parts are played with vim and vigor and the pace is athletic. The noir here is more the atmosphere of strange forces at work and being hunted for unknown reasons leading to some dread and paranoia. Recommended.

Bill Williams wakes groggily in a Navy hospital, where he's told by a blind veteran that he's a traitor and going to hang. Decding not to wait around for that, he steals some clothes and slips out, to track down Barbara Hale, the widow of his wartime buddy. After convincing her and getting in touch with fellow friend Richard Quine, he and Miss Hale negin a search that leads to former POW camp guard Richard Loo, and a stack of money.

There is some nice chemistry between Williams and Miss Hale -- they were married and would remain so through his death in 1992 at the age of 77. Unfortunately, Williams is a little bland for the role. Director Richard Fleischer offers some nice location shooting in Los Angeles' Chinatown.

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.

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?

In this crime thriller, Jim Fletcher (Bill Williams) wakes up in a veterans hospital after having received a head injury. He doesn't remember what happened but overhears a nurse and doctor discussing his traitorous deeds. If they are to be believed he was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp where he, his two best friends and others were being starved and tortured. While there he supposedly turned in his friend for stealing food and got him killed. Still suffering from his head injury Jim escapes and goes to his friends house where he meets his widow Martha Gregory (Barbara Hale). He ends up taking her hostage on his way to see another friend who he thinks might clear his name. On the way, two men try to kill him and Martha, making Martha more suspicious that Jim didn't really get her husband killed and after they see a Japanese prison guard who tortured Jim and her husband...Martha starts to make some decisions of her own and help Jim.

This was actually a decent crime thriller and I really enjoyed the conclusion...of both the crime and the personal story. Barbara Hale was fantastic! Tough and smart, she was great to watch, especially since I had only ever seen her as the character Della Street in Perry Mason.

I highly recommend this noir and think noir fans should add this to their "to watch" list. My favorite scene is with a war widow and her baby who help to temporarily hide Jim in his time of need.

Another installment of Noir Alley has brought this 63 minute classic directed by Richard Fleischer (Fantastic Voyage/20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). An amnesiac sailor, Bill Williams, accused of murder & treason sets out w/the victim's wife, Barbara Hale, to regain his memory & find out what really happened. Following the couple into their long journey into night becomes a taut piece of filmmaking. A nice postscript touch had the stars getting married in real life giving birth to William Katt, the Greatest American Hero, who resembles his dad through & through. Oh if only today's films could be as entertaining w/such a concise running time.