Scared Stiff

At his uncle's newspaper where Larry Elliot (Jack Haley) works as a reporter specializing in chess, he is known to miss out on bigger stories to cover more trivial events of minor interest. Confronted with an ultimatum if he wants to keep his job, Larry is assigned to cover a big harvest festival held at a winery in Grape City.

Larry begins with getting off the bus at the wrong stop, Grape Center instead of Grape City. He has brought along his girlfriend Sally Warren (Ann Savage), who deals in antiques. Accidents rarely come alone, and the man sitting next to Larry on the bus is found murdered, holding a chess piece in his hand when the police find him. Of course Larry, who is a chess expert, is blamed for the killing.

Routine comedy starring Jack Haley is mildly entertaining- it starts well but then halfway it gets a little monotonous and can be a bit lacklustre. But Jack Haley and Ann Savage keep things simmering. There's some good one liners.

Alas, a combination of weak direction and impossibly labored acting from the lead, Jack Haley, has firmly put the skids under a very promising script. True, despite Haley's strenuous efforts to undermine credibility, a number of sequences do succeed, particularly the action spots (such as the revolving wall and the slippery vat) in which director Frank McDonald suddenly comes to life. Otherwise he seems helpless to stem Haley's inveterate mugging. The support players are likewise overawed or outdistanced by the "star". Only Walter Baldwin, Lucien Littlefield, George E. Stone, Eily Malyon and Dick Curtis (in that order) manage to create believable yet interesting characters. Even the normally raucous Veda Ann Borg is incredibly subdued.

By the humble standards of the Two Dollar Bills (the industry nickname for producers Bill Pine and Bill Thomas, who almost always worked in tandem), production values seem reasonably high. Not that it matters.

The TIN MAN.. Jack Haley with his Massachusetts accent is the big name in this one from Paramount, 1945. It's listed on Moonlight Movie Channel as "Scared Stiff", but the opening title card says "Treasure of Fear". Haley is Larry Elliot, the bumbling reporter that keeps making bad decisions in his reporter's stories. Haley should have demanded a re-write of the script... this was a couple years AFTER wizard of oz, so clearly he had star-power from that. Co-stars Ann Savage. This story is all over the place. and the bad guys keep saying "that's the dame, See? and give us the loot, See? i guess humphrey bogart started that. or maybe Ed Robinson. skip this one. It's a no -go. yecch. directed by Frank McDonald, who seems to have appeared about the same time as talkies did in hollywood. Pass on this one.

The plot of this movie has a forgetful chess editor going off to cover a grape festival. His uncle, who runs the paper, hopes this will turn him into a normal reporter (When he covered the funeral of the mayor he failed to mention a woman's suicide over the grave, nor does he mention the riot that occurred at the chess match he was covering when he was called away for the grape festival assignment.) In typical fashion he takes the wrong bus to the wrong place and ends up mixed up in with a gang of wanted killers.

This was the first time I had ever knowingly watched a Jack Haley movie other than the Wizard of Oz. While I thought his performance was good I absolutely hated his character. No one could be that stupid and so unaware of what was going on around him. He's the type of person that you could set on fire and he'd pay it no mind. Its completely unbelievable. It ruins what should otherwise be an excellent little film that has a good B cast, some chills and thrills.

If you're curious you could try it, perhaps Haley's character won't run you the wrong way, as for me this goes into the no need to repeat pile.

A waste of good plastic.

"Scared Stiff" is also known as "Treasure of Fear" on the American television title, and "You'll Be The Death Of Me Yet."

The three stooges could put this movie to shame.

Jack Haley (The Wizard of Oz's Tin Man) is the boss's nephew he is a reporter with no idea of what to report. He is sent on an assignment to Grape City; on the way to "Grape Center," he sits next to someone who is dispatched while the bus is in a tunnel.

Being detained as a suspect he may lose his job by not getting to Grape City on time. Meanwhile, the movie has the feel of "The Cat and the Canary" and it would have been great if they left the Jack Haley character out.