Experiment in Terror (1962)

Waste of time

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

When the bank clerk Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick) arrives home after hours, she is intimidated by a stranger that knows her routine habit. He threatens Kelly and her sister Toby (Stefanie Powers) to force her to heist $100,000 from her bank; otherwise he will kill her. Kelly does not see his face but notes he is asthmatic. Kelly succeeds to lure the criminal and contacts the FBI agent John 'Rip' Ripley (Glenn Ford) that advises Kelly how to behave and assigns a group of agents to keep Kelly and Toby under surveillance. But when Toby is abducted by the stranger, Kelly tries to stay calm to help the FBI to catch the criminal."Experiment in Terror" is an above average thriller from the early 60's in a noir style directed by Blake Edwards and with Glenn Ford, Lee Remick (whom we all miss so dearly) and Stefanie Powers on the lead roles. The story has flaws but the storyline is excellent and Ross Martin performs a great villain. When Lee Remick's character Kelly is attacked for the first time, her eyes are impressive even in a black- and-white film. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Escravas do Medo" ("Slaves of the Fear")

This faithful adaptation of a roman policier with a screenplay by the Gordons themselves, seems a big strange when transplanted to American soil, hearing American accents instead of British, English dialogue instead of French. In this sort of film, the actor who plays the detective is all important and Glenn Ford just doesn't display the magnetism and the vitality for the part – especially when viewed against say, Jack Hawkins or Jean Gabin. He is just glum, old, ever-plodding Glenn Ford, never smiling, and just going through his paces like a dead-pan automaton. Lee Remick is no better as the heroine. Furthermore, she is not very attractively made up or costumed, and her whiny, raspy accent is a considerable irritation. The rest of the players, however, are definitely a decided improvement. Ross Martin, for instance, delivers a stand-out performance as the asthmatic psychopath; Stefanie Powers can look frightened most effectively; and there are some engrossing characterizations by Ned Glass, Patricia Huston and Al Avalon. Next to the acting, the second most important feature in this type of film is the milieu – and this comes across well. Location filming is a major asset here, plus the dynamic film editing with abrupt cutting from one scene to another that's totally unexpected and keeps everyone in the audience right on their toes – which as just as well, for the plot itself offers little that is exciting and almost nothing that could be described as terrifying. You might argue that time has taken the edge off this excitement, but I saw this film on first release, and I felt about it then as I do now, namely that as an experiment in terror, it is a fizzle. True, it does have suspense and tension – but not enough!Fortunately, there are compensations: Ross Martin's engrossing portrayal and Phillip Lathrop's cinematography. Plus an atmospheric music score by Henry Mancini that – aside from the credit suspense theme – is not heard to its best advantage in the movie itself. This blunder will certainly disappoint his fans like me, who have heard this great music on his sound track recording.

The threatening atmosphere that quickly develops soon after the start of "Experiment In Terror" sets the tone for everything that follows in this disturbing story of a young woman who's attacked by a violent psychopath and forced to carry out a serious crime on his behalf. The woman's ordeal continues as she's used as the bait to catch her tormentor and her life remains in grave danger all the way through to the movie's spectacular climax. The uneasy mood of the piece is effectively enhanced by Henry Mancini's creepy score and some wonderful cinematography strongly reinforces an awareness of the ever-present menace that lurks in the shadows.One dark night, Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick), who works as a teller in a San Francisco bank, returns to her home in the Twin Peaks area of the city and after having parked her car in her garage, is grabbed from behind by a man who threatens to kill her and her teenage sister unless she agrees to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works. The man, who remains unseen throughout the attack, is an asthmatic who tells Kelly details about herself and her sister which unnerve her and adds that he's already killed a couple of people in the past. He warns her not to contact the police because he'll be watching her to ensure that she obeys his orders.When Kelly gets the opportunity, she contacts FBI agent John Ripley (Glenn Ford) who takes charge of the case and soon identifies the attacker as Garland "Red" Lynch (Ross Martin) who's a criminal with a long record of convictions for violent crimes. Ripley's very methodical investigation doesn't achieve much success initially as a couple of characters who could potentially provide useful information are killed and another refuses to co-operate because Lynch had previously been very kind to her son and paid for some expensive medical treatment that he needed.Lynch kidnaps Kelly's younger sister Toby (Stefanie Powers) just before he wants Kelly to go ahead with the robbery and Ripley arranges for Kelly to follow Lynch's orders so that she can be used to trap him. The way in which the events that follow play out, prove to be extremely tense, unpredictable and dangerous.Lee Remick, in a brilliantly measured performance, conveys the extreme fear and vulnerability that her character feels after being attacked, terrorised and stalked by a ruthless maniac and the composure that she also displays in some frightening situations testifies to her courage and resilience. Glenn Ford shows Ripley's genuine concern, sincerity and efficiency very convincingly and Ross Martin is terrific as the madman whose actions cause so much distress and fear."Experiment In Terror" looks great and is well directed despite a few unnecessary lapses in the momentum of what happens on screen. Some dramatic camera angles emphasise the chaos into which Kelly's life descends after she's attacked in her garage and the extreme close-ups ratchet up the tension that's such a powerful feature of this superb movie which ends in style with a very memorable and well staged finale.

This film is a disappointment, despite having the ever-welcome Lee Remick and Glenn Ford in the leads. Although I enjoyed watching them do their very professional jobs of attempting to portray the rather unrealistic characters, I did not enjoy the film at all. It is simply an inferior piece of work and a hackneyed story line. The film was directed by Blake Edwards, and from time to time he or his cinematographer manage some atmospheric shots. There are lots of expressionistic shadows of Venetian blinds in the background of shots (hardly an original idea), and there is one shot near the end looking up from floor level at three men talking, who loom over the camera in an effective manner which heightens the tension. But by and large, this film is a waste of time. The psychopathic criminal who threatens Lee Remick is overdone, the whole effect is corny, we have seen it all before in films which have been much better scripted and better directed than this one. And frankly this genre is pretty boring in any case. The world is threatened by so many psychopaths on a daily basis that it is difficult to have too much sympathy for an arbitrarily chosen single woman and her harrowing ordeal, when whole nations and peoples are going through much worse than that. This film is an overt attempt at exploitation of the horror of menace to try to appeal to an audience and make some money. It has no integrity as a project.