Le mort à disparu

This is a thoroughly enjoyable film. The acting is of a high calibre, the elements of suspense are present, and there are just enough twists and turns to keep one interested. John Forsythe, as usual, delivers a strong performance. I truly recommend this little made-for-television gem (and note how it is full of t.v. faces you will recognize from elsewhere, for sure).

I managed to get a copy of this movie many years ago on VHS. For some reason, this TV Movie of the Week was stuck in my head for years. It was very suspenseful and kept me on the edge of my seat. The scene where Forsythe discovers the body of Mr. Gaines in the meat locker was pretty scary. I'll never forget that. Claudia McNeill ("A Raisin in the Sun")is superb as Mr. Gaine's housekeeper. She does a good job lying for the cop, played by Earl Holliman. This movie is rare to be seen today as most of the TV movies of the '70's are pretty much forgotten but there are a few gems, this being one of them. Try to get it on ebay if you can!

While on a long trip, David Ryder (John Forsythe) hits and kills a man with his car. After calling the local Sheriff, David heads back to the accident site. However, when he returns to the scene, the Sheriff (Earl Holliman) is there, but the victim is gone. This is only the beginning of a very strange, unsettling experience for David.

CRY PANIC is a disorienting made-for-TV mystery-thriller. Forsythe is quite convincing as the everyman caught in what appears to be a web of deception and conspiracy. As the story unfolds, we are just as confused as David, and just as suspicious.

Holliman is the perfect lawman, who just might not be on the up-and-up. Ralph Meeker is the town mechanic who seems to be hiding something. Anne Francis plays a woman who might know what's really going on.

This movie makes you hold on, right up to the closing credits!...

Sometimes movies can seem better because the appearance of an actor recalls past roles that expand the scope of the story.

In this case, we have a short TeeVee movie that isn't incompetent. For the era, that was a major deal.

Its based on "The Chase" with Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando, plus an already famous Rod Serling -type twist. A driver kills a drunk pedestrian in a remote town, then the facts become all contested by those in that town.

We are supposed to be sustained by the depth of the characters; compared to other TeeVee fodder, they are deep. But if you watch it today, you won't have that, so you have to rely on the twist and threat to carry you, and they just aren't that powerful.

But it features Ann Francis in a key role, a mysterious beautiful woman who represents the mystery.

This is the same woman who at 26 played the teenage daughter of a Prospero in perhaps the greatest pure science fiction movie ever, "Forbidden Planet." Her face has changed (here at 43), but she has that distinctive mole that transports us back to the planet every time we see her here.

In "planet" she was a sort of representative of uncontrollable urges that represent the larger part of life.

If you know that, and can read it into this thin construction, it is enriched.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

What happens when someone hands a great idea for an existential film noir -- a lone traveler on a deserted highway runs over and kills a stranger, tries to tell the police, and isn't believed because the body disappears -- to a purveyor of processed cinematic cheese food like Aaron Spelling? The result is the inexplicably titled "Cry Panic," a cheapo ABC movie of the week from 1974 starring John Forsythe as the wanderer lured into a trap, Anne Francis as the de riguer bored sexy housewife, and Earl Holliman as the morally ambiguous sheriff of the small town where Forstythe collides with destiny.

The film should be tightly written, but it is not -- Forsythe's character can pursue his aim of proving that he's a killer thanks to a series of unlocked windows, open doors, and lucky discoveries, plus, we never know whether Holliman is acting alone to gaslight Forsythe, or is being manipulated by the other has-been actors who run the town. Such slack storytelling would be forgivable if the movie were atmospheric, but it is not -- it looks like a cop show and makes very little use of the emptiness and darkness that creeps into view now and then, and the director tosses in twangy, generic country music where silence might be more effective. Such bland filmmaking would be forgivable if the movie were perfectly cast, but it is not. There are actors who can portray the kind of dogged existential hero who will save his sanity by proving he's a killer, but John Forsythe ain't one of them. The scriptwriters make it easy for him to play a rootless nobody by giving him no past and no future aside from a potential job interview in San Francisco, but Forsythe, ever suave and even-tempered, still looks like a disgruntled suburban Dad whose Corvette ran out of gas on the way to his country club, more the kind of man who'll make trouble go away with a firm handshake that conceals a Benjamin than a relentless pursuer of truth at any cost. There's also the fact that his character seems way too stupid to figure out a junior-level crossword puzzle, let alone a convoluted mystery. He keeps trusting the wrong people, and when he discovers a dead body while eavesdropping on his pursuers he screams and runs out of his hiding place like a hysterical preteen girl. Anne Francis wanders on and offscreen looking like she doesn't quite know what she's doing there, which kind of works for her character. That so flawed a movie should still make such an impression is a testament to the great idea on which it's based, you just wish it could have been a little better.