This is a sleeper's sleeper--rarely seen, and difficult to rent on video and even harder to rent on 16mm. An opening letterbox announces "The Sniper" as a study of one man's violence against women. From there on, it does all of that in a highly charged, suspenseful storytelling style. This movie was shot on location in San Francisco, and the closing "chase" sequence--odd and highly symbolic concerning what ails the killer--is classic. This writer interviewed the director (Edward Dmytryk) about this and other scenes in "The Sniper", and though the interview was done in 1994 (Dmytryk was 80+ at that time) his artistic recall of "The Sniper" impressed. At that time, he had never been interviewed about that movie since its release. Arthur Franz played the killer, doing a wonderful job. And overall, the writing and acting in "The Sniper" is tight and extremely convincing. The opening shot of "The Sniper" catches you up in the plight of both the public at large, and the killer--and from there, it is quite a ride. Yet "The Sniper" is more than entertainment--it is indeed a classic early study of violence against women (With Richard Kiley playing the psychiatrist). If you can rent this--get it!
Review of The Sniper
