Warning Shot (1967 film)

Los Angeles police sergeant Tom Valens is on a stakeout near an upscale apartment complex when he is forced to defend himself from a mysterious figure who aims a gun at him on a foggy night. The trouble is, the dead man turns out to be a prominent physician and pillar of the community, Dr. James Ruston, and his gun cannot be found at the scene.

Valens is in trouble with his department, specifically Roy Klodin, his captain. It doesn't help that Valens is still carrying the memory of having been shot while on duty nearly a year earlier. He is placed under suspension by the force while Frank Sanderman, a prosecutor with a grudge against trigger-happy cops, files manslaughter charges against him.

Setting out on his own to clear his name, Valens meets resistance from many including Ruston's financial adviser, Calvin York, and the doctor's alcoholic and flirtatious widow, Doris Ruston. Also unwilling to be of help to Valens is the doctor's nurse, Liz Thayer, who knew Ruston only as a humanitarian who made many trips to Mexico to unselfishly aid people in need. Even the elderly lady whom Dr. Ruston often came to visit, Alice Willows, speaks only with devotion to the doctor, who was very kind to her beloved dog. As Valens investigates Dr. Ruston, he learns that his public image does not match his real life, where he was unfaithful to his wife and had money troubles which mysteriously disappeared when Dr. Ruston doubled his income a few years prior.

The controversial cop's lone defender in public is acerbic television personality Perry Knowland, who turns out to be doing so only to increase his viewership. While trying to find some reason why Ruston would have been skulking in the fog near the apartments and brandishing a gun, Valens meets Alice Willows again after her dog passes away and she has him buried with all of his toys at a nearby pet cemetery.

Among the few offering a sympathetic ear are his estranged wife, Joanie, and another apartment resident, Walt Cody, a playboy pilot. Cody volunteers to fly Valens down to Mexico to see first-hand why Dr. Ruston commuted there so often. Complications arise when Liz Thayer is found dead in Ruston's ransacked office, obliging Valens' partner, Sgt. Ed Musso, to try to place his friend under arrest.

Upon learning that Ruston's office was ransacked, Valens overpowers Musso and goes with Cody to the pet cemetery. They dig up Willows' dog and find Ruston's gun in the casket. Valens deduces that the dog, who liked Ruston, smelled the doctor's scent on the gun and brought it back to Willows' apartment. The barrel of the gun is packed with thousands of dollars of pure heroin. Valens tells Cody that Ruston had doubled his income by using his trips to Baja to cover a drug smuggling operation and that he knows Cody was Ruston's partner in the scheme. Cody draws a gun on Valens, but Valens shoots him dead.

• David Janssen as Sgt. Tom Valens
• Joan Collins as Joanie Valens
• Ed Begley as Capt. Roy Klodin
• Keenan Wynn as Sgt. Ed Musso
• Sam Wanamaker as Frank Sanderman
• Lillian Gish as Alice Willows
• Stefanie Powers as Liz Thayer
• Eleanor Parker as Mrs. Doris Ruston
• George Grizzard as Walt Cody
• George Sanders as Calvin York
• Steve Allen as Perry Knowland
• Carroll O'Connor as Paul Jerez
• Walter Pidgeon as Orville Ames

The film was released on DVD in 2005.[2]

• List of American films of 1967
• Lillian Gish filmography

• Warning Shot at IMDb
• Warning Shot at Rotten Tomatoes
• Warning Shot at AllMovie