Step Down to Terror

One of the reviews says, avoid comparison with Shadow of a Doubt.

Since it's the identical story with even some of the same dialogue, this is difficult.

Charles Drake stars as a serial widow killer, Johnny Walters. On the run, he returns to his family home, thinking he will be safe there. He is greeted by his mother (Josephine Hutchinson), his sister-in-law Helen (Colleen Miller), and her little son.

A few things happen that make Helen uncomfortable. She becomes suspicious when two "reporters" come to the house to interview a typical family. Johnny of course retires to his bedroom. Later, when he goes out, Helen sees one of the reporters photographing him. Rod Taylor plays the plain-clothes detective posing as a reporter who falls for Helen.

This movie would be okay if it weren't a remake of a much better film. Charles Drake is very handsome - reminded me a little of Joel McCrea - and this is really in the beginning of Rod Taylor's career. The acting is good.

A little trivia for Californians: Colleen Miller married Walter Ralphs. You have perhaps shopped at a grocery store that bears his name. Not bad!

****SPOILERS**** Overdone story about a serial killer who specializes in murdering wealthy widows dropping in on his mother and her step-daughter and grandson in California. whatever you think of Johnny Walters, Charles Drake, you know he's up to no good from the very beginning. Chased by what looked like two plain-clothes policemen he later drives west to see his mom Sarah Walter, Josephine Hutchinson, in the Golden State whom he hasn't seen in six years. Johnny has a split-personality with him being sweet gentle and loving as well as secretive nasty and violent.

Johnny inadvertently gets his sister-in-law Helen, Coleen Miller,to check out a newspaper that he ripped an article out of at the local public library and she sees in that newspaper that there's a killer on the loose and his latest victim was a woman from New Orleans who he murdered named Janice Dawson.

Sweet and kind Johnny gave Helen a ring with the initials J.D on it that he couldn't convincingly explain to her how those initials got there; a ring he won gambling Johnny told her. Later the policeman who came from out of state to arrest Johnny Mike Randall, Rod Taylor, calls Helen and tells her the good news that the killer who they were looking for who the police thought was Johnny was killed in a shoot out in New York City. This came across as pure gobbeldygook since how did the police know, just by him being dead, that he was the killer of the women that Johnny was suspected of killing. That still didn't explain Johnny's creepy and unnerving actions with Helen, who he tried to kill twice by having her fall down a stairway that he "fixed" and then later tried to kill her by putting a bottle of sleeping pills in her milk. I thought for a moment that Randall just wanted Helen as well as Johnny to know that he wasn't a suspect so that he would have his guard down and make it easier for the police to arrest him later.

Another thing that struck me was Johnny's mental state. Why would he throw suspicion on himself by tearing out the article about the killings since his name wasn't mentioned at all in the story? By him acting so guilty Johnny only made Helen suspect that he was the killer especially with the clue that he gave her. The ring with the initials G.D those of the killers victim in the article?

Charles Drake played a psycho killer to the hilt and almost as well as Anthony Perkins played Norman Bates in the movie "Psycho" two years later. The movie makers of "Step down to Terror" didn't seem to know how to end the picture with it having something like three different endings.

Ending #!. Johnny meekly giving himself up to the police. Ending #2. Johnny Cracking Randell's skull as he was about to arrest him. And Ending #3. Johnny driving away from the police and having his seven year-old nephew Doug,Ricky Kelman, come out of nowhere with his bike in front of Johnny's car and Johnny getting killed trying to avoid him with Helen in the car as a hostage surviving the crash.

Avoid any comparison with Hitchcock's masterful "shadow of a doubt" ,its remake would suffer ; nobody here can match the Teresa Wright/Joseph Cotten pair ,and the director can't begin to touch the master's genius of suspense of psychological tension .Thornton Wilder and Alma Hitchcock had dramatically enriched the original story ,by creating lots of new characters ,all more colorful than the one before .

In the family where the uncle takes refuge, there are only three persons; the mother ,the widowed daughter-in-law and her son ; the detective (played by Rod Taylor ,later star of Hitchcock's "the birds") plays a more prominent part than in the 1952 version,and he quickly falls in love with Helen ,the niece (there's no love/hate relationship between her and her uncle ) ; the ring is a good trick , so is the crushed bike .The film is rather short (about 75 min) and sometimes the events are too hurried for comfort; the denouement is rather poor and implausible .

Charles Drake is handsome and quite convincing when he charms the old ladies .

Needless to say ,you will always be better off with the fifties version.

Having acted alongside Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Dennis Hopper and Earl Holliman in 'Giant', the 28 year old Rod Taylor continued to get roles alongside high profile actors and actresses until his big break came in 1960 with 'The Time Machine'.

Wow, I'm the only 10 star review??? I don't know why B movies receive negative criticism. From a cinematic standpoint, some of them are more impressive than A-list movies. You can't underestimate a small budget and a lesser known cast of actors and actresses. I guess I feel that way because I've never been crazy about movies that are popular with the general public. I've watched movies, older and newer, that people rave about, and I didn't see what the big deal was. There's a lot of underrated gems that the majority of people don't even know about, and I'm so happy they're on YouTube.

The beginning of Step Down to Terror wasn't groundbreaking. It was quite simplistic, actually - a man running away from the cops, then some time later, standing on a front porch and hugging his mother - but it caught my attention. Johnny Williams (Charles Drake) is dodging the law, and decides to hide out in the home of his mother (Josephine Hutchinson), sister-in-law (Colleen Miller), and nephew (Ricky Kelman). Unbeknownst to them, he's a serial killer, and he only murders widows, and that happens to be his sister-in-law. His brother nearly died as a child in an accident involving a bicycle, which he blames himself for (I don't know if the writers meant to do this, but it was implied that he has PTSD. Chances are, I'm sure that was unintentional, because not much was known about the disorder back in the 50s. Looking at it through a modern day lens, not receiving treatment pushed him over the edge, leading him to become homicidal). I love watching the type of movies where the main character isn't who everybody thinks they are, and they have to go to great lengths to hide their true self. It was pretty sad at one point though, because Johnny's nephew was excited to have him around, seeing as how his father was deceased, but Johnny was so opposed to him having a bike, out of the fear that originated from his brother's accident, that he waited until no one was outside to run over it with his car, and when his nephew discovered it was destroyed, he acted like he had no idea what happened. He starts acting strange, to the point that his mother and sister-in-law notice. Well, more so his sister-in-law. She suspects that he's hiding something sinister. My only complaint, is the ending seemed rushed, a common thing with B movies. Nonetheless, I can easily watch this more than once. Also, I didn't find out this was a remake until after the fact. Honestly, I have no desire to watch the original. I enjoyed this so much that I'm not even curious.

By the way, Charles Drake was handsome. This movie was somewhat true to life. While all of them aren't murderers, handsome men are generally unbalanced. If you haven't already seen this, it's worth a look. Don't pay attention to the low reviews.