Thursday, October 3, 2024

Cry Terror! (1958)


 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Cry Terror! (1958) – A. L. Stone

As the movie begins, we learn that a bomb has been planted on a plane with the plotters demanding a fortune to stop it from detonating. Evidence quickly points to TV repairman James Mason. However, it turns out that he was tricked into making the bomb that Rod Steiger, Angie Dickinson, and Jack Klugman have subsequently smuggled onto the plane. In order to keep Mason from talking, the trio of bad guys kidnap him, his wife (Inger Stevens) and young daughter.  Neville Brand plays a particularly loathsome heavy who stands guard over them. Stevens is sent to collect the pay-off from the airline company with Steiger threatening to kill her daughter if she tips off the police.  Of course, the police are hard at work trying to solve the case at the same time.  Filmed on location in New York (including a climactic scene in the subway tunnels), this is a fast moving, often raw and adult, thriller with good performances throughout.  Perhaps it is all much ado about nothing but the film, as directed by Andrew L. Stone, excels at ratcheting up the tension.  

 

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