Engineer Robert Warren (Lawrence Tierney) on assignment in Brazil, is set up for a murder when he discovers a client dead in his office and he is discovered standing over the body. After giving chase to the real killer and trying to elude the police until he can prove his innocence, Warren ends up hiding on a steam boat heading into the Amazon. Along the way he becomes involved with an unhappily married woman, her husband and his business partner (Marissa O'Brien, Rudolph Anders, George Coulouris) while trying to sort out the details of the crime.
The role is a bit of a departure from the usual for Tierney. Here he is cast as the man in peril. An innocent victim who through none of his own doing is caught up in the crossfire. As such Tierney does a serviceable job but clearly this type of role wasn't his long suit. Marissa O'Brien as Tierney's love interest gives us more disbelief to suspend as a concert pianist who for some reason moves to the remote jungle with her near psychotic husband who she doesn't love. To nobody's amazement things don't go well.
The movie is a fair to middling, tropical crime drama. While at the start the movie hints of a fast paced action, mystery / crime flick, it slowly chokes down to more sluggish melodrama and an anti-climatic resolution with little explanation of the crime itself. Lawrence Tierney fans are likely to be disappointed and there isn't enough beef on the bones of the story to build much interest otherwise.
A surprisingly nondescript effort for a movie titled 'Kill or Be Killed' with Lawrence Tierney.
