Storm Fear

Cornel Wilde who preferred to chart his own course in independent film making as opposed to going to television as so many of his contemporaries were doing made a fine one with Storm Fear. As per usual his wife Jean Wallace joined in the endeavor. It must have been good for him as well as financing for his movies to have a leading lady instantly available.

In this film Wilde is a nominal bad guy. A charming bank robber at least as far as the women are concerned. At least as far as Jean Wallace is concerned as they had a son together, but it was Wilde's older brother Dan Duryea, a would be novelist who married Wallace and carried on the fiction that he was David Stollery's father. They live in a remote area of one of our Rocky Mountain states.

Wilde's just robbed a bank and he and his two surviving accomplices, Lee Grant and Steven Hill head for the Duryea-Wallace farm as a hideout and to recuperate as Wilde was shot in the holdup. Of course while they're there Duryea spots some sparks between Wilde and Wallace.

Wilde who directed as well as played the lead got some complex emotions out of his players. He's a bad guy, but still charming in his own way and protects his family from what a psychotic Steven Hill might do. Wallace is still in love with Wilde, but knows full well what a charming liar he is. Duryea is a decent, but inadequate man who knows he's been a failure far from his usual variety of psychotic villains.

Before Kirk Douglas's more celebrated breaking of the blacklist with hiring Dalton Trumbo for the Spartacus screenplay, Wilde did some blacklist breaking of his own in hiring Lee Grant in what turned out to be only her second feature film. Grant does very well in a role that calls for her to be a good natured gangster's moll who meets with a tragic end. In fact the most straight forward part in the film is that played by Dennis Weaver as the hired hand on the Duryea-Wallace farm who goes chasing the robbers.

Wilde assembled a fine supporting cast to support him as an actor and his vision as producer/director. One reason he could hire Lee Grant was because he was producer of Storm Fear which was released by United Artists. He created a real winner here.

This is a strange Low-Budget, well Cast Thriller and is a first time Directorial effort from Cornel Wilde. It is the claustrophobic first half that works best as tensions mount and identities are revealed. As things open up later, in the snowy outdoors, it turns rather routine as its limitations are exposed.

There is an attempt at some unusual Family situations that adds some verisimilitude and in Film-Noir tradition all the Characters are flawed. If things were kept indoors the tension would be almost unbearable, but as it is, the last third seems more like typical Hollywood.

Although the Child is central to the Plot and is crucial to the Theme of things gone wrong and regretful behavior, it is ironically left to the Pre-Teen to carry the emotional baggage at the end and it doesn't quite come off as a satisfying closing to the Family Circle. Certainly worth a view because it is a bit different, but the final Act is just too pat and seems a lot less believable than what went before.

Gem from the BLACK SERIES with Cornel Wilde

This "film noir", which is not very well known in German-speaking countries, premiered on December 16, 1955 in New York City and is a representative of the so-called Black Series of American films that impressed in the 1940s and 1950s with their darkness and resounding cynicism. The Hungarian-born American leading actor Cornel Wilde (1915-1989), who made his first contacts with the film business in 1940 as Laurence Olivier's fencing coach on Broadway, also acts as a producer with his Theodora Productions and also directs. What a self-made man!

It tells the dark story of three bank robbers, Charlie Blake (Cornel Wilde) and his cronies (Steven Hill, Lee Grant), who have to hide from the police in the snowy mountain hut of Charlie's brother Fred (Dan Duryea). Old family conflicts break out because Fred is married to the beautiful Elizabeth (Jean Wallace, married to Cornel Wilde from 1951 to 1981), who was actually Charlie's girlfriend in her youth. The couple's ten-year-old son (David Stollery) hardly knows his Uncle Charlie and suffers greatly from his parents' alienation. Due to the seemingly hopeless situation, the situation for those who are virtually trapped becomes more and more dire until the intruders finally lose their nerve...

Here, an exciting, dark crime story is skilfully combined with a heart-touching family drama. The unity of place, time and plot is almost classically maintained and increases the intensity of this film gem immensely.

Cornel Wilde, who was particularly noticeable for his impressive physique in films such as "The Greatest Show in the World" (1952) and "Constantine the Great" (1961), proves to be an accomplished film craftsman who understands a lot about the structure of a drama and the The requirements of the genre are met almost perfectly.

In her rather small role as nightclub singer Edna Rogers, Lee Grant, born in 1925, creates a truly magical moment when she sings the song about "Loch Lomond" in a wonderfully off-key way. Twenty years later, Lee Grant was awarded an Oscar for best supporting actor for her role as a bored housewife in "Shampoo" (1975), who likes to bring her strong-armed hairdresser (Warren Beatty) into the house for special treatments.

Former decathlete Dennis Weaver (1924-2006), who was supposed to play a very special role in Steven Spielberg's directorial debut "Duel" (1971), can be seen as Hank, the helping hand of the Blake family.

A very exciting film that is still little known! It's worth it!

Another of the 'home invasion' dramas so popular at the time, except with a twist. Here the fleeing criminals (bank robbers) invade the secluded mountain home of one (Wilde) of the robbers' old sweeties (Wallace) now married to a failed writer (Duryea) with an adolescent son (Stollery). Naturally, in these cramped quarters with a blizzard outside, emotions bubble over, especially with the consumptive, jealous Duryea, plus the unstable gunman Steven Hill.

These are promising elements but the drama really fails to gel, because Wilde is too nice to project real menace, while the real menace, Hill, is never given the kind of emotional close- ups that would establish his danger. Instead, he just sort of prowls around in the background. Actually, the movie's mainly about the burgeoning Wilde-Stollery relationship, where you have to read between the lines about the actual source of the dog collar. Then too, it's Stollery stealing the movie in a poignantly shaded performance, while Wilde unwisely spends too much time showing off his manly chest.

The second half moves to the great outdoors, where the gang tries to escape the approaching cops by fleeing over the snowy mountains. Here we get some suspense as the figures are reduced to little dots on a great white landscape. Now they're struggling not only with each other, but with an overwhelming nature. This part plays out in fairly effective fashion, though I never did figure out what exactly the errant snowplow was doing on an anonymous mountainside.

All in all, it's an uneven, sometimes awkwardly filmed movie, whose chief virtue may be what it doesn't tell the audience about the relationships instead of what it does. And kudos to producer Wilde for giving the blacklisted Lee Grant a minor part as the gang's moll, at a time when the best this fine actress could get is TV walk-ons. My guess is Wilde took on too much for a first-time filmmaker (director-producer-star) and would have been advised to hire an accomplished director. But then this was a low-budget effort, (the interiors were filmed in a TV studio!). Wilde's real filmmaking talent would show up later in the acclaimed Naked Prey (1966), so I guess this was something of a learning experience.

I first noticed Mr. Wilde in "Naked Prey" - although it's now a bit dated in some ways, much like that better known film, "Storm Fear" is a gripping tale when viewed with the appropriate 'Fifties mindset.

Cornel plays "Uncle Charlie", a ne'erdowell prodigal son returned to his brother's home while on the run from a capital crime with his gang of gruesomes. As its plot unfolds, we learn many disturbing lessons about Charlie and his brother and his brother's wife.

Akin to cinematographic pulp fiction, this is a memorable effort perhaps due to its depiction of universal, timeless human flaws. You'll love to hate Uncle Charlie, but I think you'll enjoy the rest of the cast even more.