Director Richard Fleischer's lean crime thriller with Noirish touches features Lawrence Tierney as an ex-cop who gets caught up in a frame up and a murder or two. Priscilla Lane (in her final film role) plays his girlfriend who still works for the police and abets his investigation on the sly.
At barely over an hour, one can't expect much in the way of character development nor intricate plotting, but Fleischer and his four writers (including a young Robert Altman getting his first screen credit!) pack enough here to keep it interesting enough. Tierney suits the part of a thuggish investigator while Lane provides suitably perky support (the film is edited so tightly that it seems as though the couple are living together - without marriage! OMG! In 1948?!). Other familiar faces in the cast include Philip Reed, Steve Brodie and Elisabeth Risdon.
Fleischer went on to make several more crime pictures including the original NARROW MARGIN, while Tierney became an iconic tough guy (I used to see him hang out in a local revival house towards the end of his life. Always seated up close to the screen). BODYGUARD is very much a bottom half of the bill B movie, but, it's not a bad way to spend an hour.