Cry Terror!

Cry Terror! (Andrew L. Stone, 1958) Bottom of the barrel thriller that plays like a pulp novel in broad daylight, played by a cast so talented you wonder why they agreed to do it in the first place. 

One could look at the film as a metaphor of the vulnerability of the supposedly "normal" 1950's family and how it could be up-ended by outside forces beyond their control—or even their comprehension, which might put it in the same fragile vein as Hitchcock, but, there the similarity ends. Cry Terror! has more in common with a low-budget film-noir, but without the artistic pretensions or deftly planned chiaroscuro lighting. It has all the nuance of a random bludgeoning and appears to be just as well-planned. There is some irony here as the caper that encompasses Cry Terror! is a clockwork-precise extortion plot conceived down to the last detail.

Jim Molner (James Mason) is an ordinary television and electronics repairman with an extensive background that he picked up in the Armed Forces. He is appalled to see on the local news (reported by Chet Huntley and Roy Neal) that an airline is being extorted for $500,000 by parties unknown...and then something begins to click. Or tick, rather. He recently designed a specific timer for a client named Paul Hoplin, who had certain specifications in mind, and he begins to wonder if he actually had designed a bomb for the man.

The FBI (in the form of Kenneth Tobey, Jack Kruschen, William Schallert and Barney Phillips) meet with airline executives who tell them of receiving threats and untraceable phone calls from a terrorist threatening to blow up a plane. The exec's think it's all a bluff and refuse to pay, but the agents convince them to play along with the caller to prevent loss of life. They investigate and await any communication about demands.

"This is Roy Neal, stealing ideas from Donald Trump from 'way back in 1958."

Molner goes home early and finds that his Joan (Inger Stevens) is entertaining an old friend of his—Paul Hoplin (Rod Steiger), who, as soon as Molner shows up, reveals his true colors. They're going to wait for the Molner's daughter to come home from school. When she does, the whole big happy family is going to be kidnapped and held hostage, with one of them to be set up as the person who picks up the ransom money from the airline. If the money isn't received by a certain time, the whole family will be killed and he flees the country. 

Neat. Tidy. Untraceable. 

Hoplin is damaged goods. A genius in his own mind, he doesn't take to having his demands argued with, or having his intelligence questioned. His dream is to be alone in his own little world and has the scruples of a snake in order to accomplish it. Fortunately, he has minions who'll do his bidding, even if only one of them has a last name. That would Eileen Kelly (Angie Dickinson), who, along with pervert psycho Steve (Neville Brand) and "Vince"—"a thug"— (Jack Klugman)are not the best of goon squads. There's lots of talk of "shiv's" and "drugs" but, fact is, even for the Eisenhower 1950's, these toughs are wearing ties!

Tough guys looking like your teachers at school

 

Cry Terror! straddles the fence between "the good guy" investigators who are straight out of "Dragnet" and the "bad guys" who are theatrical and "method" leaving the sympathies with the victims, the Molners, who are split up—Dad and child held prisoner in a posh New York penthouse downtown and Mom who has to run all over town playing "beat the clock" and picking up and delivering the ransom in order to save the family. At the same time, director Stone follows her through real locations, while the rest of the movie plays out on sound-stages.

What is most interesting is that this boils down to a "woman in peril" movie, but the women, whether its Dickinson's ferociously focused moll or Stevenson's more-than-capable housewife, are the strongest ones in the movie, despite the father's acrobatics in an elevator shaft in a desperate move to escape. Stevenson's Mrs. Molner starts out trembling and wide-eyed, but finds herself frantically carrying out the bad guys demands, while fending off all distractions, including officious police, snarled traffic, and the frothing sex maniac left in charge with guarding her once the ransom's been dropped off. She proves more than capable, despite being placed in a nightmare situation around every corner.

Cry Terror! is no one's idea of a good movie. Despite the attempts to ground it in police procedural staidness, there are so many hysterical twists and turns that suspension of disbelief is almost impossible. But, one can't stop watching for the zany pulpishness of the thing. Eventually one has to ask the one burning question:

Why are so many good actors, accomplished actors in this thing?