dougdoepke One look at a lustful Neville Brand (Steve) in heat darn near sent me under the bed. He's high on Bennies and it's a cowering Joan (Stevens) who's going to pay, except maybe she's got a surprise for the plug-ugly thug. In a movie filled with tense situations, this may be the scariest. Anyway, if it's not a woman menaced by a nutcase, it's Joan driving in traffic to meet a deadline, or her hubby (Mason) clambering around an elevator shaft, or both Dad and Mom keeping a nasty extortion gang from taking their toddler. If anything, there may be too many of these sweaty palms to keep up the effect. Whatever the case, this may be first film of the '50's to utter the word 'rape'.The plot's a version of a '50's favorite, the home invasion, where an unwary American family is suddenly under attack inside the apparent safety of the home. It's also likely a reflection for the movies of a growing suburban audience. Here the invasion is part of a complex plan to extort money from an airline under threat of an airliner bomb. Of course, that brings in the feds and a lot of police procedure, while we hang in there with the little family under siege.It's an unusually fine cast, with Brand as the standout, at least in my little book. Also, check out the fetching Angie Dickinson as a sadistic gang moll—real casting against type. There's also the tragic Inger Stevens showing her fine acting chops, along with a rather restrained Rod Steiger as the gang mastermind. It's all put together by the Stones, husband and wife, noted for their documentary style and dedication to location filming, from which the story gains helpful credibility.All in all, the movie's a 90-minute exercise in relentless tension that seems ironically topical, given how thorough bomb detection is now fifty-years later.(In passing—I expect the movie's premise was inspired by the real life case of John Gilbert Graham. In 1955, he blew up an airliner over Colorado for insurance money on his mother, of all people, killing 44 passengers in the process. Needless to say for the law and order 1950's, he was swiftly executed. But perhaps most interesting for our day is that there was no federal law at the time covering bombs aboard airliners—apparently the possibility seemed too remote! As a result, Graham was tried and convicted under a different statute. Yes indeed, how times have changed.)

DS3520 A genuine nail biter, from start to finish! This film is guaranteed to keep you in suspense from beginning to end! Led by Rod Steiger, who gives a riveting performance as the psycho-kidnapper, the rest of the cast performs most ably, lending considerable credulity to the storyline. Acting honors must go to the underrated Inger Stevens, whose career was tragically shortened by her untimely death. She lends just the right note of hysteria as the wife and mother whose family is being held, as she is made to follow the demands of the kidnap gang members in order to secure their safe release. The film also gives us some great shots of the NYC of the period, particularly the West Side Highway and other notable spots in the city.

Fred_Rap The exclamation point in the title is appropriate, albeit an understatement. This movie doesn't just cry -- it shrieks loud enough to shatter glass.Filmmakers Andrew and Virginia Stone made shrill, humorless suspense thrillers that strove for a semi-documentary feel. Here, they shot on actual New York locations with tinny "real-life" acoustics to jack up the verisimilitude. But the naturalism of the sound recording only serves to amplify the Stones' maladroit dialog and the mouth-frothing histrionics of tortured butterfly Inger Stevens.In a performance completely devoid of modulation, Stevens plays the wife of electronics whiz James Mason (looking haggard and bored); both are held captive by extortionist Rod Steiger (looking bloated and bored) and his slimy cohorts in a scheme to blackmail an airline with a deadly bomb that Mason has unwittingly helped construct.Here is another credibility-straining instance of a criminal mastermind so brilliantly attentive to every detail, yet knuckleheaded enough to hire a drug-addicted degenerate as an underling. The Stones' idea of nail-biting tension is to trap the hysterical Stevens alone with Benzedrine-popping rapist Neville Brand, filling the frame with his sweaty, drooling kisser. But the camera work is so leaden and Brand so (uncharacteristically) demure that the effect is hardly lurid, much less suspenseful. The Stones, a square pair at heart, don't even have the courage of their own lack of convictions.The film, which ends with the portly Steiger chasing the fleet-footed Stevens on a subway train track, is as clumsy as its ungainly heavy. With Angie Dickinson as Steiger's amoral girlfriend, Jack Klugman, Kenneth Tobey, and Barney Philips.

sol ***SPOILER ALERT*** Utterly ridiculous crime thriller that has to do with a number of not too bright hoods involved in a kidnap blackmail scheme in order to get $500,000.00 from a major airline.The blackmail part was hard enough to pull off but the kidnapping of electronic expert Jim Molner, James Mason, and his wife Joan, Inger Stevens, and 10 year-old daughter Peggie, Terry Ann Ross, was just plain stupid! Using this powerful dough or plastic explosive that Jim invented to blow up airplanes the leader of the kidnap gang Paul Hoplin, Rod Steiger used that fact to implicate Jim in the crimes he planned to commit. But by kidnapping Jim and his entire family Hoplin did just the opposite in making him look innocent which in fact he was!To show just how off the wall Hoplin, the brains of the outfit, was he puts in charge of holding Joan hostage the glassy eyed and heavily addicted to Benzedrine Steve, Nevile Brand! Instead of him keeping an eye on Joan the big buffoon ends up getting himself killed by her by dropping his guard, before he had a chance to drop his pants, as he tried to rape Joan and then getting his throat slashed in return! What makes this whole thing even crazier is when Hoplin finds out that Joan killed his fellow kidnapper Steve he acts as if nothing happened! This from a guy who was ready to murder both Joan's husband and daughter for just being a minute late in her, as his bag lady, bringing him the blackmail money he had just extorted from the airline!If that wasn't enough to see that Hoplin was a total nut-case later in the movie while he's holding Joan hostage in his pad he still insist that he'll have both Jim and Pattie murdered if he's not allowed to escape by the police. Which by that time Hoplin's fellow kidnappers Vince, Jack Klugman, and Eileen Kelly, Angie Dickerson, who's supposed to be holding them hostage were in police custody! All this information was right in front of Hoplin is a screaming newspaper headline in bold type, where he wouldn't even need his glasses to read it, that they've been rescued by the FBI just hours ago!