Experiment In Terror (1962)

It's fair to say that director Blake Edwards is best known for lighter, and often comedic, fare. The Pink Panther movies, Breakfast At Tiffany's, Operation Petticoat, and quite a few others. So Experiment In Terror stands out as one of his darker films, and it also stands out as yet another damn fine one from a damn fine director.

Lee Remick plays Kelly Sherwood, a woman who finds herself terrified one evening when a man accosts her in her own home and tells her that she will rob money from her workplace, a bank. If she contacts the police or attempts to stop the plan from unfolding then it will put the life of her younger sister (Toby, played by Stefanie Powers) in grave danger. Remick somehow manages to get the police informed (headed up by the dependable and assured Glenn Ford) and a tense game of cat and mouse unfolds as the deadline for the robbery nears and the police try to get their man.

Based on a novel by Gordon Gordon and Mildred Gordon (who gave themselves the imaginative title of . . . The Gordons), Experiment In Terror excels because of the little touches throughout that feel real and tense enough to keep you distracted from the sillier aspects of the main premise. Most of the scenes featuring Ford doing actual police work are very effective, and the two-hour runtime allows the tension to be ratcheted up while viewers get to learn a bit more about the main supporting characters.

Remick is very good in the lead role, often wide-eyed and tremulous with fear, and Ford brings the necessary gravitas to his part. Powers doesn't get to do as much, but is good enough, and Ross Martin is unnerving enough as the asthmatic baddie, often shown in shadow or just moving in the background as he keeps an eye on his prey. Even those with much less screentime - Roy Poole, Anita Loo, Patricia Huston, et al - do solid work.

Directorially, Edwards is as solid as ever. I've never really thought of him as a truly great talent, more so a damn fine one (as mentioned above), but his approach to the material here mixes the tense set-pieces with some plodding detective work in a way that keeps things interesting, well-paced, and genuinely gripping for a large portion of the runtime.

Unjustly overlooked, or forgotten, by many (including myself), Experiment In Terror is ripe for rediscovery. Fans of crime films and thrillers may find that they have a new favourite.

8/10

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Die! Die! My Darling! AKA Fanatic (1965)

One of the more bizarre, and therefore more interesting, movies to be released under the Hammer name, Die! Die! My Darling! feels a bit like something you'd expect to see if Pete Walker and Sergio Martino decided to work together on a movie that then had all of the nudity and bloodshed removed. It's often very stylish, it contains a roster of strange and memorable characters, and most of the highlights revolve around aspects of passion, be it severely repressed or bubbling up to the surface.

Stefanie Powers plays Patricia, a young woman who sets out to visit the mother (Mrs. Trefoile, played by Tallulah Bankhead) of her deceased fiance. When she gets there, she finds a very strange household where no condiments are added to the food, no mirrors are used and make-up is not allowed. Even the colour red is frowned upon. Patricia soon finds herself in trouble, upsetting Mrs. Trefoile and unable to get away as quickly as she would like to.

Written by Richard Matheson, based on the novel by Anne Blaisdell, this is a film more about characters and mood than snappy dialogue. There may not be many memorable lines, but there is great pains taken to develop both the characters and situation.

Powers makes for an appealing lead, her character puts up with a LOT before standing up for herself, and Bankhead is very good as the strict, cold Mrs. Trefoile. Peter Vaughan is good as the lusty Harry, Yootha Joyce does well in the role of Anna and Donald Sutherland puts in an appropriate, but strange, performance as Joseph, a mentally handicapped young man. Maurice Kaufmann may not be onscreen much, as Alan (the current beau of Patricia), but he does just fine.

Director Silvio Narizzano does a good job with the material, keeping everything interesting and entertaining without ever filling out sequences with cheap shocks or gratuitous excesses. The movie walks a fine line between the eerie and the laughably bonkers, and it's to Narizzano's credit that once the film ends it stays in your memory for all the right reasons.

All in all, this is a very good film for fans of the slightly bizarre.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Die-My-Darling-DVD/dp/B000DN6DFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376817786&sr=8-1&keywords=die+die+my+darling

Crescendo (1970)

Crescendo is another lesser-known Hammer movie that stands firmly in thriller territory, as opposed to the many solid horrors that they released. Funnily enough, while the movie was running I couldn't help but think of Amuck! The two have superficial similarities here and there, but the latter movie is a much more enjoyable experience.

Stefanie Powers plays Susan Roberts, a young woman who travels to the South of France to work on her thesis about a famous, deceased composer. While there, she is lucky enough to be shown a lot of hospitality by the composer's widow (Margaretta Scott) and his son (James Olson). But maybe that's not such a good thing, especially as she starts to see how strange they are.

With the addition of a creepy manservant (Joss Ackland) and a scheming maid (Jane Lapotaire), this thriller really overcooks everything in a way that could have been entertaining if the central character interactions were more fun. Sadly, they're not and the film suffers because of it.

The direction by Alan Gibson is not lively, or stylish, enough to elevate the weak script by Jimmy Sangster and Alfred Shaughnessy. Nobody involved has the courage to make things darker or sleazier, which is why a movie like Amuck! will always play better (hey, if there are many failings elsewhere in a movie then darkness and eroticism can help a lot . . . . . . . just look at the likes of Basic Instinct and anything from 20 years ago starring Shannon Tweed).

Stefanie Powers is okay in her role, as beautiful as ever and almost believably manipulated into sticking around even as things get curiouser and curiouser, while Margaretta Scott and James Olson roll their eyes and go over the top whenever possible. If you can watch Olson in the second half of the movie without thinking of one or two particular scenes from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels then you're a better man than I am. Jane Lapotaire is annoying, but Joss Ackland almost manages to counterbalance her badness, though not quite.

It remains a notch above the very worst that the studio released, but it's a close call.

4/10

http://www.amazon.com/Crescendo-James-Olson/dp/B0026RB2J8/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1373382061&sr=1-1&keywords=crescendo