Fear

Peter Cookson is a medical student who receives the bad news that the medical college he is attending is no longer able to afford to grant scholarships. His future becomes suddenly darker as he's faced with having to drop out with only one year to go. How this bad news affects his psyche is more or less what the film is about in a post-war 1940's era take on psychology and dreams. It seems to revolve around a sense of alienation portrayed through a surprisingly riveting dream sequence that occurs on a dark night on the railroad tracks. In spite of its meager budget this movie succeeds in rating fairly high up on the standards of my film scale.

A desperate student murders a pawnbroker, but is hounded by an odd but persistent detective... and his own conscience. Sound familiar? No attempt is made to credit Dostoyevsky, but the film is quite clearly a modern adaptation of "Crime and Punishment". And for a quickie (just over an hour) B-movie production with a cast of no-name actors, it's not too shabby. The performances aren't great, but I liked Anne Gwynne as the love interest and Warren William as the crafty police chief. Zeisler pulls off a few nice flourishes and delivers a tight little package. The story makes for prime noir material, and is hard to mess up. However, they blew it with a cheap ending. Not just cheap, but woefully predictable. I should research C&P adaptations.... Kaurismaki's is okay, but there ought to be a better one out there.

Maltin's summary, and his star-and-a-half rating, for this quickie film noir fails to put it in the context of other, far more dismal Monogram productions. "Fear" has lots of interesting camera-pushes, nice use of close-ups, relatively interesting lighting, and a great nightmare montage. Plus, an expressive touch at the moment the key murder takes place (which I won't reveal) is just brilliant. Three things link this film to Fritz Lang's work--the marked coat (from "M") the dream-frame ("The Woman in the Window"), and perhaps most explicitly the palmreading of Larry's hand, revealing an "M", which stands for. . . . [supply your own dramatic music here]. Noir fans should seek this one one out for sure. Others may not be so impressed.

Well, in this one we have actress Beatrice Straight's husband (Peter Cookson) and Chris Pine's mother (Anne Gwynne) along with Warren William starring in Fear from 1946, directed by Alfred Zeisler.

This is an American retelling of Crime & Punishment until the final moments of the film.

Cookson is a broke medical student who kills a professor (Francis Pierlot) who doubles as a pawnbroker. However, he leaves the man's apartment in a panic, without taking any money. His guilt consumes him, and it doesn't help that two police detectives (William and Nestor Paiva) are on his case.

What is interesting about this film is that the director was from the German expressionist school and gives us a wonderful dream sequence involving railroad tracks and makes use of angles and shadows effectively.

As for the end of the film - it's a device used in so many films during that time. It's really a cop out, even if I did get a kick out of it.

The programmer's a compelling noir except for the Production Code's required Hollywood ending. Up to that end point, however, the narrative amounts to a dark look into the ravages of psychological guilt. Larry's got a promising future as a med-student, but he also can't make tuition for his final school year. Dead broke, he's about to get tossed out of his fleabag apartment for non-payment. Desperate, Larry feels driven to murdering his pawn-brokering professor for the cash box riches he's hidden. Trouble is Larry's haunted by his crime, especially when fate delivers an unexpected publisher's check for an article he's written. Had he waited just one more day, he wouldn't have needed to murder for money. How cruel is fate and how relentless now are the cops.

Actor Cookson as Larry delivers an appropriately grim facade up to the end. To me, he, is an unknown performer, but subtly effective in the conflicted role. At the same time, there's something about him reminiscent of a sinister Tony Perkins. And how about the luscious Anne Gwynne. Her available presence makes his predicament that much worse. Then too, there's the magisterial Warren William as the head cop, taking a break from his ruthless pre-Code businessmen, e.g. Employee's Entrance (1933).

There're also some unsettling touches-- the onrushing train that crushes us all, the magic act that beheads without showing us recovery, the ominous black cat that awaits poor Larry. These are just some of the imaginative touches leading us to a bleak world where anything might happen.

Anyway, the programmer may be an atmospheric cheapo, but had the producers been able to complete the tale without the cop-out ending, it would also rise way above that meager status. So, when you see Larry cross the street at the near end, reach for the off-button. It's worth it.