Cry Terror!

A splendidly over-the-top performance from Rod Steiger as the maniac who holds a family hostage as part of the extortion plot that involves putting a bomb on a plane, is the main reason to see Andrew L Stone's thriller, "Cry Terror!". It's all a bit daft but it's got a good cast, (even if James Mason is wasted as the poor dupe who made the bomb in the first place). Inger Stevens is very good as his wife and Neville Brand, Jack Klugman and Angie Dickinson are suitbaly nasty villians while Stone always knew how to keep the suspense on the boil. Minor but watchable.

This is a really taught little thriller. I've heard it described as noir, but that isn't true. There is way too much daylight in this movie, but it doesn't in any way detract from the nail biting suspense. It's a somewhat convoluted plot about an evil psycho that lures an old army buddy into his plan to extort money from an airline by planting a bomb on one of their flights. I know that sounds like a tired plot, but this one has lots of twists. He gets the buddy to build the bomb by convincing him the Army is interested in it. He then kidnaps this guys family and forces the wife to pick up the ransom money! This is a fast paced movie and the tension just continues to build from beginning to end. There is also lots of stuff for the tech junkies.

The cast is also top notch. Rod Steiger plays the diabolical psycho, assisted by his evil henchmen played by Neville Brand (what a surprise), Jack Klugman (as a shlub), and a delicious Angie Dickenson in her most delicious prime. Inger Stevens plays the terrified wife who always seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but the big surprise is the buddy played by James Mason, of all people. Character development abounds as this story progresses. Jack Klugman begins to break down when he realizes they will have to kill the kid. Rod Steiger begins to lose his cool as the plan unravels. Neville Brand becomes crazier and more menacing by the minute. The family, on the other hand, gets stronger and more resourceful as time goes by. They seem to be able to draw on an inner strength none of them knew they had. The motive for this madness is perfectly logical. They were willing to blow up an airplane for half a million dollars. In light of 9/11 we can almost look back in nostalgia at a motive that rational.

1958 was a good year. This movie lets us look back on cars with tail fins, beer can openers, the West Side Highway, men who wore ties, and women who wore heels. It was also the tail end of an era where movies actually told a story - and this is a great one.

The plot is REALLY dumb, with a back story that writer/director Andrew Stone wisely soft peddles, since it makes James Mason's character look like a complete dope. Also, it is not very suspenseful. Basically it's a lot of Inger Stevens and Mason too easily outsmarting the bad guys and gal interspersed with some aggressively dull FBI procedural stuff. Finally, the look of it is extremely cheesy, what with Riverdale alternating with LA, often in the same scene (last time I looked the Bronx did not boast palm trees or craftsman bungalows). So, why a 6 'stead of a 5, or worse? In a word, the cast. Great assemblage of actors. How great? Well, let's just say, as a previous reviewer has noted, that the least distinguished member of it is Mason and when that happens you know there's some serious character acting going on. My fave? Angie Dickinson, of course, never better or more convincing than when playing a hot, morally challenged, moll. Also nice to see Jack Klugman, fresh from playing knife hating juror #5 in "12 Angry Men", this time lovingly nursing a shiv. Give it a C plus.

The airline is getting bomb threats. Chet Huntley reports. Mastermind Rod Steiger has an extortion scheme to collect half a million abetted by Klugman Dickinsom, and Brand. Steiger bamboozled Mason into building his bombs, then kidnaps his family to execute the plot. Interestingly, Stevens is overwrought (purposefully directed so)while nearly everyone else underplays it very effectively - UNTIL things start unwinding. Then Brand's psycho begins to freak out, Steiger's mastermind blows his cool, and Mason loses it - all very realistically done in semi-documentary fashion. I do not see the "routine" aspects others cite. These characters are quite different from the ordinary - especially Dickinson's matter-of-fact criminal who has no compunction about killing if necessary and has ice water running through her veins - a great performance. It makes fabulous use of its New York locations on a low budget. Stevens' race to make the ransom delivery on time despite being diverted by traffic miles in the wrong direction is a tour-d-force like I have seldom seen. The wrap-up is a bit melodramatic considering the tension that came before it - but only then did I breathe normally again. If you are from New York or interested in New York in the 50's, this is an edge-of-your seat treat.

Although this is one improbable story a great cast moves Cry Terror along. In watching this I suggest you do not take a bathroom break as you'll miss some kind of thrilling moment.

James Mason is a TV repairman with wife Inger Stevens and little daughter Terry Ann Ross and during the late war he was in underwater demolition with Rod Steiger. Steiger comes to Mason with a proposition that he build some kind of triggering device that they can sell to the Navy. Only Steiger puts it on some bombs and is making extortion threats against an airline run by Carlton Young.

Now that he's got Mason implicated in his extortion scheme Steiger takes Mason and family hostage and he has Stevens go to collect the payoff. She gives as much information as she can to FBI agent Kenneth Tobey and without following her, the FBI races against time to catch Steiger and his gang before they do some grievous harm to the airlines and Mason's family.

Mason and Steiger are a great pair of leads and a contrasting study in acting styles just like Steiger and Humphrey Bogart were in The Harder They Fall. Stevens gives one of her best performances on the big screen as the frightened wife.

Steiger's accomplices are quite a study in low lives. Jack Klugman as a punk, Neville Brand as drug addicted sex criminal, and psycho nymphomaniac Angie Dickinson are some real criminal specimens. They give good competition to the leads.

It's an improbable story, but the tension never lets up the second that Steiger takes the hostages. Those last three minutes or so will stay with you forever as they did with me when I first saw Cry Terror several decades ago.