Notte di terrore

The Night Holds Terror doesn't have a whole lot going for it except for tension – but maybe that's enough. Like Detour (which may be a distant ancestor), it's the story of how a whim, a twist of fate, can turn lives upside down. Driving home from his job at Edwards Air Force Base, Jack Kelly picks up a hitch-hiker (Vince Edwards) who pulls a gun on him. The rest of Edwards' gang (John Cassavettes and David Gross) join up, but spare Kelly's life when he has only 10 bucks on him. Deciding that trading in his car for cash is a better deal, they take over Kelly's knotty-pine home – he has a wife (Hildy Parks) and two kids – until the following day.

From then on in it's a standard family-held-hostage suspenser, with Edwards putting the moves on the wife and the inevitable sorting out of the pecking order among the gang members. When they depart next morning, taking Kelly along for insurance, Parks disobeys orders and calls the police. But will the police locate the gang before they kill Kelly?

His five years of glory as Ben Casey, M.D. still down the road, Edwards, smoldering and stretching the seams of his T-shirt, makes the strongest impression in the movie – maybe the only impression. Cassavettes (occasionally looking like Jerry Lewis at about the same time) delivers an unremarkable performance, and the rest of the cast is no more than passable. Photography is the flat, ‘50s style until the end, when some night shots in driving rain add atmosphere. The story unfolds in the semi-documentary style common to its times, complete with voice-over narration (first by Kelly, then by an anonymous authority figure).

The Night Holds Terror gets compared frequently to The Desperate Hours, a better production but a stagier one as well. For all its low-budget look and low-price acting, the movie retains some authenticity. At times it almost seems like cinema-verité – like those edgy little films Cassavettes himself would soon be making.

I have often confounded NIGHT OF TERROR with CRY TERROR, because both have "terror" in the title, and also because both are made by the same director; and let's admit that both stories are quite close. Hoodlums against the common law abiding citizen living in the suburb. John Cassavetes and Vince Edwards literally steal the show because of their performances. This story could have been perfect for a seventies or even eighties film, partly because inspired from true events that occured in february 1953. It is predictable, easy to know how it will end, but just enjoy the directing and acting too. Useless to insist on this same topic as DESPERATE HOURS.

These types of films seemed to be quite common in the 1950s. Drivers making the foolish mistake of picking up the worst possible type of hitch-hiker--a criminal. One who might take him hostage or kill him at any moment. A very real fear of the possible.

This film feels like a mix of THE HITCH-HIKER and THE DESPERATE HOURS but isn't quite on par with either. Unlike those, this feels like a Made For TV film. The Narration is very much a negative and will probably make many laugh due to its dire seriousness.

But the characters in this film are well-played and certainly entertaining enough to make this film an enjoyable ride. Especially good are Hildy Parks as the terrorized wife who won't stand for it and Jack Kelly as her husband who is thinking only of his family's welfare. John Cassavetes is also good in his role as the mastermind criminal. There's some terrific cinematography in the film featuring scenes out in the desert and the climatic ending in the rain.

Gritty little suspenser that holds interest throughout. Writer-director Andrew Stone's and wife Virginia's reputation rests on a documentary-style approach to film-making. Making a movie about people on board a sinking ship?-- then sink an actual ship, The Last Voyage (1958). I believe it was Andrew Sarris who observed that it was a good thing they never made a film about the end of the world!

There's a lot of that documentary approach in this low-budgeter taken from an actual kidnapping case of the period. Kidnapping was much in the news in 1953 with the sensational abduction for ransom of little Bobby Greenlease, of Kansas City, I believe. And, of course, then as now, screen-writers love to chase the headlines of the day. So it's no surprise that several of these plot-lines turned up at about the same time, including the rather eerie Big House, USA (1955).

Here the screenplay recreates the abduction of the offspring of a wealthy LA-area family, Gene Couture. What makes the movie work is the inspired casting (probably a happy accident) that brings together three fast-rising young actors-- a sullen Vince Edwards, a moody John Cassavetes, and an appealing Jack Kelly as the victim. You really get the feeling from the former two-- who look edgy and act even edgier-- that anything can happen at any time. Together as the lead abductors, they're little short of the proverbial dynamite. When they take Kelly into the desert, you get the feeling he's a dead duck for sure.

Then too, the Stone's insistence on real suburban locations lends the proceedings a look and feel different from the usual. The procedural part gets kind of draggy as the cops enter the case and was likely inspired by the police mega-hit of the day, Dragnet. But at least it's consistent with the over-all documentary tone. Some buffs see the movie as noir. I don't, taking it instead as a particularly effective example of the "home invasion" genre that was also popular at the time. But however you cut it, this is still a darn good little 90 minute nail-biter.

THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR is an interesting thriller/film noir entry for various reasons. Yes, it bears a strong similarity to THE DESPERATE HOURS, but that's because both were inspired by the same true (and sensational) story. Proving which one went into production first might be difficult. But really, it doesn't matter, because unlike the Hollywood sheen of THE DESPERATE HOURS, this odd little film has many gritty aspects and colorings and transcends its low budget.

John Cassavetes is always great to watch, even in a lesser picture. Here, while he rarely truly shines, he manages to keep tightly wound like a coiled spring, with his menacing glare and occasional flashes of violence. Vince Edwards is actually nowhere near as good here as he was playing similar hoods in MURDER BY CONTRACT, CITY OF FEAR and THE KILLING, though it's an acceptably menacing performance.

What really makes THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR is a constant reliance on real locations. I couldn't spot one studio set in the entire picture; every interior seems to be in a real place (Cassavetes' modern hilltop home and the Courtiers' kitchy suburban one, police stations, telephone switching centers, the Mojave desert, etc.). There is even one standout sequence where the captors' car careens through the desert, photographed by what appears to be a cameraman barely holding onto the hood of the car. No rear screen here, and this is several years before the famed from-the-hood Venice driving sequence in TOUCH OF EVIL.

And the pace of the picture is practically amphetamine-charged. If the camera isn't moving, the cast always is, with constant dialogue shot through with tension. This is a strong, underrated thriller, and while hardly a perfect masterpiece, it's definitely superior to stagier hostage dramas of the period and well worth tracking down.