Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

BODYGUARD (1948) is a snappy 62-min. b&w noir programmer directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Lawrence Tierney. Rather than repeat what others have said here, I'd rather emphasize a couple of things that truly distinguish this film. For one thing, it was filmed largely on location at sites all over Los Angeles. Ex-policeman Mike Carter (Lawrence Tierney), trying to clear himself of a false murder charge, moves around L.A. quite vigorously in the course of his investigation, sometimes by car, sometimes by cab, and sometimes on foot, traveling to shops, offices, back alleys, factories, piers, and amusement arcades all over the city. If you like seeing film footage of L.A. in the 1940s, there are many films with abundant footage, but none quite like this one.Also, I'd like to single out a very clever scene that offers an ingenious method of transmitting key information from one location to another in the era before fax machines, cell phones, or e-mail. Carter needs the contents of a case file kept by the police officer whose murder he's been framed for. Only his girlfriend, Doris (Priscilla Lane), who works in the department, can find the file for him. He tells her over the phone to write down all the important cases handled by the officer in the past year and then go to an amusement arcade on 3rd Street, find a "Record Your Own Voice" booth and read all the cases into the microphone onto as many vinyl records (78 rpm) as needed, and then to leave the stack of records for him at the cashier's counter under an assumed name. Carter's plan is to go to the arcade, give the assumed name, enter an available booth and listen to the records until he finds the case he's looking for. There are wonderful little details of character and street life woven into the scene (and just about every scene in the movie). When Carter first enters the arcade, the brassy blonde at the counter is flirting with two sailors and claims not to know anything about a stack of records for a "Mr. Nolan." An anxious Carter gets insistent and the two sailors turn on him, spoiling for a fight. Only then does the manager come over and defuse the situation and find the package of records for Carter. It's just a brief moment but it not only adds to the suspense, but captures so much of the tenor of the time and place.The basic plot itself—corrupt industrialist covers up shady business practices via murder and convenient frame-ups—would get recycled ad infinitum on TV cop shows in the 1970s. But it might have seemed somewhat fresh back in 1948, especially after ALL MY SONS (also 1948), based on Arthur Miller's play, raised a similar issue in a drama of a wartime industrialist who sends out defective airplane parts with tragic results.

This is a relatively short low-budget little sleeper from 1948. For the money spent, this is a wonderful film--with good gritty acting and a dandy fast-paced Film Noir script. Like many Noir films, the actors are generally not top-tier names and faces--and this is a plus, as this both heightens the realism and intensified the experience. Lawrence Tierney plays a hot-headed cop who would rather beat a confession out of a perpetrator or search a home without a search warrant. As a result, he's suspended from the force. But, being such a volatile and violent person, he takes this poorly and tries to push his boss' face out the back of his skull--so he's fired.Later, a stranger approaches him with a huge wad of cash and wants to hire him as a bodyguard. Tierney, though, is a smart guy and smells something fishy--the money is too good and there MUST be a catch! However, he eventually relents and is pulled into a vicious murder conspiracy and is set-up to take the fall!! So, in Noir fashion, he needs to avoid the cops AND prove his innocence.All this works so very well,...that is up until the end. While his girlfriend, Lane, is fine in most of the film, at the end she stupidly goes to the hideout where the murders are hiding and is herself in great danger. This "brain lapse" is pretty inconsistent with the rest of the film and seems more like a cliché than anything the characters really would have done. But, aside from that, it's a fine and entertaining example of the genre.

Tough-talking mug Lawrence Tierney is the hero of this quick and dirty cheapy from 1948. He plays a detective who's kicked off the force for being a hot head, and gets a job moonlighting as the bodyguard for an elderly lady (Elizabeth Risdon), matriarch and acting manager of a large and successful meat-packing company, whose life is being threatened for unknown reasons. Of course it's not long before we and Tierney realize that he's been set up to be the fall guy for a crooked plot to swindle the company away from the old lady, and he helps crack the case with the help of his girl Friday Priscilla Lane."Bodyguard" is almost laughingly short and inconsequential, but it's an awful lot of fun. There's nothing especially striking about the writing or visual style, but yet it doesn't feel anonymous either. There are some clever set pieces to distinguish the film, most notably a scene that takes place in an optometrist's office and that uses some clever lighting and framing. And Tierney has a cute relationship with Lane, and it's refreshing to see a woman in a film like this take an active role in solving the crime rather than simply be someone the leading man has to rescue.Robert Altman (credited as Robert B. Altman) wrote the story for this film at the ripe old age of 25.Far from a must see, but enjoyable if you can find it.Grade: B-

Fleischer would go on to direct much better movies, and in fact the excellent "Follow Me Quietly" is his next film. Robert Altman's story co-credit indicates nothing. Enjoyable performances from Tierney and Lane, and a short and well-photographed fight scene in a butchery near the end, don't make up for the mundane plot.