MAN AFRAID

George Nader

MAN AFRAID (1957). Director: Harry Keller.

A man sneaks into a child's bedroom window and runs into the boy's mother, hitting her in the face and temporarily blinding her. When her husband, minister David Collins (George Nader), comes to her rescue he winds up inadvertently killing the intruder. Although not charged with any crime, Collins learns that the dead man's father, Carl Simmons (Eduard Franz), is following his little boy, Michael (Tim Hovey), around town in a threatening manner. Collins' wife, Lisa (Phyllis Thaxter), feels helpless because her eyes are bandaged. As Simmons becomes more and more bold, going so far as to invade Collins' very home, the minister tries to get Lt Marlin (Harold J. Stone) to take some kind of preventative action. But will it all come too late?

Nader with feisty Mabel Albertson

Man Afraid is a solid suspense film with very good performances. Nader has always been under-rated because of his participation in such films as Robot Monster, but he's fine in this, as are Thaxter and little Tim Hovey, an appealing and talented child actor. Reta Shaw offers a little spice as a nurse hired to look after Lisa, and Mabel Albertson certainly makes her mark as Simmons' tippling and fairly obnoxious landlady. Stone also makes the policeman more obnoxious than he needs to be. Tom Nolan is also notable as Michael's friend, "Skunky," who is neglected by his father (Judson Pratt), an aggressive newsman. He tells the sympathetic Collins that his father claims he makes too much noise "but when I'm dead they'll wish I was able to make any kind of noise." Franz is effective in a near-silent role.

Nader with Phyllis Thaxter

Man Afraid is well-photographed in CinemaScope by Russell Metty, and has a very good score by Henry Mancini. Keller's direction is adroit, and the climax is tense and exciting. One odd sequence concerns a boxing match between little boys in an actual arena, a match that Michael participates in! Considering that the "burglar" entered the Collins' house when the couple was home, and immediately snuck into the boy's bedroom, one has to wonder exactly what the man was after, but this aspect goes unexplored. Harry Keller also directed Nader in The Female Animal and The Unguarded Moment. 

Verdict: Absorbing suspense film with good performances and a satisfying conclusion. ***. 

EXPERIMENT IN TERROR

Ross Martin

EXPERIMENT IN TERROR (1962). Produced and directed by Blake Edwards.

Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick) is a bank teller who lives with her teenage sister, Toby (Stefanie Powers of Die, Die, My Darling). One night a stranger named Red Lynch (Ross Martin) sneaks up behind her in her garage and tells her she has to steal $100,000 from her bank or there will be dire consequences for her and her sister. Kelly manages to contact the FBI, and Agent Ripley (Glenn Ford) is assigned to the case, trying both to find and identify Lynch and to protect Kelly and her sister from harm. Eventually it is decided to let Kelly go along with the plot in an effort to trap Lynch, with the climax occurring in a crowded stadium. Experiment in Terror begins well and has a couple of decent sequences, but Blake Edwards is no suspense specialist, and the film becomes meandering, uninvolving, and rather dull. Remick gives a controlled and competent performance but doesn't offer one iota more for her portrayal; Powers is much better as her sister. Ford plays the "G-Man" with a quiet authority that never quite makes him seem like the best man for the job. Anita Loo and Patricia Huston have flavorful supporting roles as two women who were also in Lynch's life, to the former's advantage and the latter's regret. Ross Martin gives the most notable performance as the criminal "mastermind" who seems to have some sympathy for the little son of a woman he knows and whose hospital bills he is paying, but his character is not very well developed; three years later he gained TV fame on The Wild, Wild West and he was also outstanding in the classic TZ episode Death Ship. Henry Mancini's score is at times quite effective, and Philip Lathrop's cinematography of San Francisco and environs is also good.

Verdict: Paging Alfred Hitchcock. **. 

ARABESQUE

Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck 

ARABESQUE (1966). Produced and directed by Stanley Donen.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, my dear, but Mr. Pollock is as poor as a church mouse." -- Beshraavi

"He was rather strange, even for an American."

Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck) is drafted by an Arab Prime Minister, Hasson Jena (Carl Duering) to enter the home of the sinister Beshraavi (Alan Badel of Salome) and decode a cipher on a piece of paper with a Hittite inscription that my reveal the man's plans. The house is apparently owned by Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren), Beshraavi's mistress, and to Pollock's befuddlement her role keeps changing even as she seems to switch sides with the drop of a hat. Before long he and Yasmin are on the run, dodging bullets and trying to get back the cipher so they can figure out what is happening. But David is never sure if he can fully trust Yasmin. Arabesque was Stanley Donen's follow-up to the more successful Charade, but the film's first big problem is the miscasting of the two leads. Peck tries to approximate but fails to deliver the light touch of a Cary Grant, and Loren is also a bit too heavy-handed, although she tries. Arabesque has a solid plot but the script has too many silly, indeed stupid, detours, and some of the action scenes are completely muffed by Donen, who is no Hitchcock. On the other hand, there is some exciting business near the end, including an attack on the principals at a construction site, an attempt to stop an assassination, and a race across a bridge while a helicopter is firing live ammunition at the couple. Another problem is that Alan Badel looks too much like Peter Sellers impersonating an Indian (which he did more than once in his career, such as in The Millionairess, which he did with Loren) and you keep expecting -- or hoping -- he will suddenly indulge in some hilarious shtick. No such luck. Henry Mancini's score does little to help. A much better thriller for Peck was Mirage.

Verdict: So so comedy-thriller with a few good sequences, but not nearly enough. **1/2.

MR. LUCKY (TV SERIES)

Ross Martin, Betty Garde, and John Vivyan

 MR. LUCKY television series.1959. Created by  Blake Edwards.

In this series, one of several created by Blake Edwards, Mr. Lucky (John Vivyan) -- with no first name -- operates a legal gambling ship outside the limit with his friend, associate and fellow adventurer Andamo (Ross Martin) -- which could be the fellow's first name or last. The boat is named the Fortuna, which means luck. Halfway through the first and only season of the show, Lucky decides to give up gambling and turn the Fortuna into an exclusive and very expensive private restaurant and night spot; oddly the scripts seemed somewhat better afterward and there was even more action. Pippa Scott was a semi-regular who played Lucky's girlfriend while Andamo played the field. Another character who appeared frequently was Lt. Rovaks, (Tim Brown), whose voice was so squeaky that he sounded like a cartoon character [maybe "Lucky Duck."] Mr. Lucky, frankly, was not one of the classic shows of television, nor was it one of Edwards' better or more successful series, but some of the generally mediocre episodes were somewhat more memorable than usual, with the best single episode being one wherein Lucky gets targeted by a hit woman played by Mari Blanchard. Another memorable episode has Jack Nicholson and Richard Chamberlain robbing the Fortuna and its customers at gunpoint. There were plenty of desperate, kooky or sinister females, as well as gangsters [one of whom is played by Lou Krugman, from the "Lucy Gets in Pictures" episode of I Love Lucy] and other reprobates. Despite the competent and often charming performances of the two leads -- although Vivyan was a borderline stiff -- the characters were shadowy and never quite came alive. Other guest-stars on the show included Betty Garde [that tough maid in a classic Honeymooners episode]; Grant Williams, Barbara Bain, Cyril Delevanti, Eleanor Audley, Lee Van Cleef, Nita Talbot, and Doris Singleton [Carolyn/Lillian Appleby on I Love Lucy] who's striking as an especially ruthless female with murder on her mind. Henry Mancini's music is nothing special. Ross Martin ["Death Ship" on The Twilight Zone] would have much more success with The Wild, Wild West a few years later.

Verdict: Stick with Mike Hammer with Darren McGavin.**

PETER GUNN Season 1

Craig Stevens as Peter Gunn

PETER GUNN Season 1. 1958.

"I hear when she wants to look at pictures of her friends, she just drops into the post office." -- Mother

The action of this private eye series, which was created by Blake Edwards, takes place in an unnamed coastal city. The first season consists of 38 half hour black and white episodes. The central location is a waterfront night club called Mother's [after the owner, "Mother," played by hefty Hope Emerson], which Gunn uses as an office, despite the fact that he is highly successful at his trade -- judging from the way he throws fifty dollar bills around to various sources on virtually every episode. Gunn (Craig Stevens) is not a comparative "lout" like Mike Hammer, but is cut from the same urban cloth as Richard Diamond, albeit west coast style. The other regulars on the show, besides Emerson, are Herschel Bernardi as Lt. Jacoby, who practically seems like Gunn's unofficial partner [stretching credulity], and Lola Albright as his girlfriend and a singer at Mother's. [Although Albright is very pretty and a competent actress, and has a pleasant singing voice, as a vocalist she is hopelessly bland, singing every song with the same inflection and lack of panache.] Albright's character, Edie, seems a bit childish at times, when she gets jealous over practically every female client of Gunn's. Although no one could ever accuse Stevens of being a "great" actor, he's fine as the "cool" [i.e. rather unemotional] Gunn [or is Gunn unemotional because he's played by Stevens?], but when he's given a chance to show some versatility, such as an episode in which he pretends to be a naive country boy, he delivers the goods.  Bernardi is quite good as the cop; other semi-regulars include Billy Barty as stool pigeon Babby, and Morris D. Erby, who shows up late in the season as the likable and highly positive black police officer Sgt. Davis. Like most fifties detective programs, Peter Gunn could be fairly violent at times, and there are some wonderful fist fights and well-choreographed action sequences.  

While Peter Gunn is not quite as good as the aforementioned Mike Hammer, most of the episodes are at least of a "B" quality and some much better. Among the more memorable episodes are "The Frog," in which an old lady (Jean Inness) wants revenge for the killing of her friend and companion (Whit Bissell scores as a mobster); "Death House Testament," in which an inmate tells Gunn about some money; the borderline homoerotic "The Jockey," with an excellent Frankie Darro and Robert Gist; "The Lederer Story" involving skulduggery on a yacht with a family headed by a notable Otto Waldis [who was in everything from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman to Judgment at Nuremberg]. An especially delectable Mara Corday is featured in "Keep Smiling;" "Skin Deep" involves a missing sister and a gigolo; "Family Affair" features a death plot against a wealthy old man (John Hoyt); "Killer from Nowhere" spotlights Wesley Lau from Perry Mason; and "The Painting" concerns a plot to "embarrass" a senator via his philandering and desperate wife. The three best first-season episodes, arguably, are ""Pay Now, Kill Later," with Torin Thatcher as a man wrongly convicted of the murder of a business partner who's actually still alive; "Vendetta," in which Edie is shot by a man bent on vengeance against Gunn; and especially "Love Me to Death," a twisted tale with Jeannette Dolan as a wealthy spinster and Robert H. Harris as a fortune hunter. Directors for the series include Boris Sagal [Mike Hammer], Lamont Johnson, the aforementioned Robert Gist, and even Jack Arnold [Tarantula].

And then there's that sensational, sexy theme music by Henry Mancini, which seems to be fondly remembered by people who can barely remember the show or have never even seen it!

Verdict: Okay, maybe not a great show like Perry Mason, but often very entertaining and well-done. ***.