Incident in an Alley is a 1962 American neo noir crime film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Chris Warfield, Erin O'Donnell and Harp McGuire.
The film's premise rests on a legal precedent that police may use force against fleeing suspects if the suspect has committed a crime and is warned of the officer's intent to shoot. In 1985, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case of Tennessee v. Garner that deadly force may be used to prevent the escape of a fleeing felon only if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a serious risk to the officer or to others.
Plot
After beat cop Bill Joddy shoots and kills a fleeing suspect, the victim is found to be a 14-year-old boy. Joddy is charged with manslaughter but is acquitted by a jury. He begins to question his own culpability while trying to prove that the boy was participating in a robbery just before he was shot.
Cast
Chris Warfield as Bill Joddy
Erin O'Donnell as Jean Joddy
Harp McGuire as Frank
Virginia Christine as Mrs. Connell
Willis Bouchey as Police Capt. Tom Brady
Don Keefer as Roy Swanson
Michael Vandever as Gussie Connell
Gary Judis as Charlie
Jim Canino as Mushie (as James Canino) Clancy Cooper as Police Sergeant
Production
The film was based on a television play written by Rod Serling that had aired in 1955 as part of the US Steel Hour starring Farley Granger. It was then announced as a film project by United Artists. Clarence Greene and Russell Rouse were assigned to produce, with Serling adapting the screenplay, but the film was not made until several years later.
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Howard Thompson wrote: "For all its devious, transparent moralizing about the shooting of a young boy by a policeman, 'Incident in an Alley' belongs in one. The synthetic, floridly hewn little melodrama that opened yesterday on the circuits is strictly pulp stuff, conventionally posing a background of juvenile delinquency and the business of adult 'responsibility.'"
