(There are Spoilers) Having a deep psychological fear as well as hatred of women since he was a little boy Eddie Miller, Arthur Franz, grew up to become a serial abuser and later murderer of women. We get a little insight in what makes Eddie tick when we first see him as he walks alone one evening on the streets of San Francisco. Everywhere he looks he sees women, young and old, as his enemies which leads him to lose it and decide to do them before they do him in.
The movie does have Eddie involved with women like his boss at the Alpine Cleaners & Dryers and his elderly landlady where he seems to act normal with them. It's when he tries to make it with night-club piano player Jean Darr, Marie Windsor, who's dress he, as a diver for Alpine cleaners & Dryers, was delivering and the way she treats him as if he were just a little boy instead of a man that has Eddie finally freak out and go psycho. To the point of murdering some half dozen people, with Jean as his first victim, and sending the people, mostly women, of San Francisco into a total state of panic where they didn't feel safe on the streets or in their homes anytime of the day and night.
The movie seems to be based on the string of murders in Chicago back in 1946 by 17 year-old William Heirens who had the same kind of hangups that the fictitious Eddie Miller had. In that Heirens had an uncontrollable hatred of women and murdered three of them , one of his victims was a 7 year-old girl, until he was finally caught by the police. Heirens like Eddie Miller knew that he was sick and desperately wanted to get help. But back then people like himself weren't treated for their mental illness, by being put away and treated in a mental institution, but for their criminal actions by locking them up in prison. Where they would get no help and later when, if they didn't murder anyone, after being let out continue their life of crime.
The movie has in it a prison psychiatrist Dr.Kent, Richard Kiley, giving a speech to a number of city officials, including the mayor, about how people like the at large sniper, Eddie Miller, in the movie is the victim of an uncaring society in not recognizing his illness and not having him treated for it that makes him as much of a victim as those that he victimizes. Eddie himself knows that he's a sick man, he spent time in a prison psycho ward for assault, and tries to get help by going as far as burning his right hand on a stove in order to get admitted into a local hospital. Only to end up getting his hand bandaged and released within an hour.
One of the first films to address mental illness and does it with a man who's not only sick but murderous as well. Which makes it very very difficult to have any kind of sympathy for him but at the same time realize that his actions are that of a man who can't control them, they control him. The film "The Sniper" has as the cop in charge of the sniper killings an almost unrecognizable, with out his famous mustache, Adolphe Menjou as SFPD detective Let. Kafka, was there a hidden meaning in that?. Let. Kafkas assistant and sidekick is the tough Humphrey Bogart look-alike, but looking some 15 years younger, Gerald Mohr as Sgt. Joe Ferris. The two track the killer down in his rooming house in the films very tense and nerve wracking final with almost the entire population of San Francisco looking on.
The movie does have Eddie involved with women like his boss at the Alpine Cleaners & Dryers and his elderly landlady where he seems to act normal with them. It's when he tries to make it with night-club piano player Jean Darr, Marie Windsor, who's dress he, as a diver for Alpine cleaners & Dryers, was delivering and the way she treats him as if he were just a little boy instead of a man that has Eddie finally freak out and go psycho. To the point of murdering some half dozen people, with Jean as his first victim, and sending the people, mostly women, of San Francisco into a total state of panic where they didn't feel safe on the streets or in their homes anytime of the day and night.
The movie seems to be based on the string of murders in Chicago back in 1946 by 17 year-old William Heirens who had the same kind of hangups that the fictitious Eddie Miller had. In that Heirens had an uncontrollable hatred of women and murdered three of them , one of his victims was a 7 year-old girl, until he was finally caught by the police. Heirens like Eddie Miller knew that he was sick and desperately wanted to get help. But back then people like himself weren't treated for their mental illness, by being put away and treated in a mental institution, but for their criminal actions by locking them up in prison. Where they would get no help and later when, if they didn't murder anyone, after being let out continue their life of crime.
The movie has in it a prison psychiatrist Dr.Kent, Richard Kiley, giving a speech to a number of city officials, including the mayor, about how people like the at large sniper, Eddie Miller, in the movie is the victim of an uncaring society in not recognizing his illness and not having him treated for it that makes him as much of a victim as those that he victimizes. Eddie himself knows that he's a sick man, he spent time in a prison psycho ward for assault, and tries to get help by going as far as burning his right hand on a stove in order to get admitted into a local hospital. Only to end up getting his hand bandaged and released within an hour.
One of the first films to address mental illness and does it with a man who's not only sick but murderous as well. Which makes it very very difficult to have any kind of sympathy for him but at the same time realize that his actions are that of a man who can't control them, they control him. The film "The Sniper" has as the cop in charge of the sniper killings an almost unrecognizable, with out his famous mustache, Adolphe Menjou as SFPD detective Let. Kafka, was there a hidden meaning in that?. Let. Kafkas assistant and sidekick is the tough Humphrey Bogart look-alike, but looking some 15 years younger, Gerald Mohr as Sgt. Joe Ferris. The two track the killer down in his rooming house in the films very tense and nerve wracking final with almost the entire population of San Francisco looking on.