Plot synopsis, A Noir Film 1958
Claude (Vince Edwards) is a disaffected man who, in search of fast money to purchase a $28,000 house, decides to become a contract killer for a Mr. Brink. After proving his worth by killing targets in a barber shop and a hospital for a Mr. Moon (Michael Granger), whom he then kills at Brink's behest, Claude is given a contract to kill a witness in a high-profile trial, which starts in two weeks in Los Angeles.

At first calm about the assignment, spending the first several days sightseeing to check if his handlers, George (Herschel Bernardi) and Marc (Phillip Pine), are being followed, Claude becomes agitated when he discovers the witness in question is a woman, Billie Williams (Caprice Toriel); in his opinion, women are harder to kill than men, because they are "unpredictable". Claude scrambles to find a way to kill Billie, who never leaves her closely guarded house. After two attempts, Claude believes he has killed her, but later discovers that he mistakenly killed a policewoman instead, and the police have covered it up to avoid further attempts on Billie's life.

Out of ideas and convinced the contract is "jinxed", Claude quits, only to find George and Marc have now been instructed to kill him. After killing the men, Claude finally succeeds in sneaking into Billie's house via a culvert, but hesitates when he is about to strangle her. The police arrive; Claude attempts to escape via the culvert but is killed in a shoot-out.

Claude
Claude is set apart from the other hit men in the story by his unwillingness to carry a gun, and his clinical, precise approach to murder, which he treats as a business.

Cast
Vince Edwards as Claude
Phillip Pine as Marc
Herschel Bernardi as George
Caprice Toriel as Billie Williams
Michael Granger as Mr. Moon
Cathy Browne as Mary
Joseph Mell as Harry

Tags: accting demo, practice scenes, challenging scenes