The Fiends

Psychopathic killers roam at large in two new movies:

The Sniper (Stanley Kramer; Columbia) draws a melodramatic bead on a sex murderer (Arthur Franz) who goes around shooting brunettes with a telescopic carbine. It seems that he was unloved as a child. Similar in plot to the facts of Los Angeles' recent "sniper" shootings,* the picture gives its story a San Francisco setting and a constructive, if somewhat superficial, plea for psychiatric treatment of sex offenders. The Sniper has a few sequences that hit the cinematic bull's-eye, notably a raw. realistic police lineup. But at times the picture appears unable to decide whether to set its dramatic sights on suspense or sociology. Unusual touch: old Boulevardier Adolphe Menjou, minus his mustache, playing a rumpled work horse of a police lieutenant.

Without Warning (Allart; United Artists) is about a paranoiac (Adam Williams) who kills blondes with garden shears because his blonde wife walked out on him. Entitled at various times The Ripper and The Slasher, the screenplay of Without Warning predated The Sniper by a year and a half. This unpretentious little thriller wisely plays it for straight action, and has a number of vigorous chases smartly filmed around Los Angeles with a newsreel camera. Independently produced on a shoestring budget of $92,000, Without Warning is a rather promising first venture for four young moviemakers-Producers Jules Levy and Arthur Gardner, Director Arnold Laven and Scriptwriter Bill Raynor--who met while making World War II Air Force training films. Best sequence: a covey of blonde policewomen being staked out in bars as decoys to flush out the killer.

* The sniper, 29-year-old Railroad Switchman Evan Charles Thomas, was caught last month after eluding the police for almost a year, during which time he killed one woman, wounded four others.

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