L'ombra alla finestra

This film has the feel of a TV drama made into a B film. Saw it on cable recently as a curiosity since a young Jerry Matthews was in it. The drama, directed by William Asher, was a surprise.

The film is a police drama where a young mother, working as a free lance secretary for a farm owner, gets tangled in a break in that ends badly. Her young son, playing innocently outside watches the whole thing. What young Petey witnesses produce in his little mind a trauma that makes him run from the scene until he is found by two truckers going to market.

The movie was a product of the era in which takes place. Betty Garrett, as Linda, is perfect for the part. Also good was Phillip Carey, an actor that never had great opportunities in films. The scene stealer is Jerry Matthews, who played Beaver in the old series.

When it started out it seemed like it could be decent watching. It became tedious and boring because the three robbers/kidnappers were incredibly stupid. Made me uninterested in movie. The acting, overall, is below par. There is nothing much to recommend this movie.

When the film begins, a group of punks are tormenting some people at a farmhouse. Soon, they kill the old man who lives there and the lady who is visiting (Betty Garrett) is being held captive...and all this is seen by her very young son (Jerry Mathers) who has been playing outside. Naturally, the boy is traumatized and he wanders off in a catatonic haze. Eventually he's found wandering along a highway and the kid is taken to the police. The boy is recognized-- -he's the son of one of the cops! The woman, apparently, is the cop's ex-wife. Can the police figure out where the woman and these sickos are in order to rescue her?

This is a tense and reasonably well made film. I particularly like the scene where the woman attempts an escape--it's surprisingly brutal. Well worth seeing and currently posted on YouTube.

SHADOW ON THE WINDOW starts out promisingly enough with JERRY MATHER witnessing a violent crime through a window, but then starts to sag as the police try to pry information from the dazed boy.

The male lead is detective PHILIP CAREY who gives such an indifferent performance when he learns his ex-wife is being held captive by some thugs that he fails to give the rest of the story any real sense of urgency. Nor does BETTY GARRET as the captured secretary who has to contend with three foolish young thugs, one of whom is played by JOHN BARRYMORE, JR. Unofortunately, all of the capture scenes are played with low-key intensity and suffer from a poor script.

What should have been a gripping police drama involving thugs and a victimized little boy and woman victim, is a tepid, almost amateurish attempt at suspense that produces more yawns than thrills.

Trivia note: Best performance among the thugs comes from COREY ALLEN, who played "Buzz" in the James Dean flick, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. His chase scene provides the only real tense moments in the film.

I'd actually call this one a 5.5. Pete Atlas (Jerry Mathers) is playing in the yard of a house where his mother is working. He looks inside through a window and sees three young hoods fighting with the old man who lives there and sees them ultimately kill him in that fight which is part of a robbery in progress. The hoods don't know about or see the boy. Pete is traumatized by what he sees and starts wandering down the highway where he is picked up by two truckers who can see he is in shock, worry about him just walking down the middle of a busy highway, and take him to the local police department, and are then on their way.

It so happens that Pete's dad, Tony Atlas (Philip Carey) is a detective at that police department, and wonders what has happened to his son, who refuses to speak. Because Tony and his wife Linda have been separated for eight weeks, he knows that Linda has been working part time as a stenographer, but has no idea where. And the truckers that picked up the boy and could tell him the location are long gone.

Meanwhile, back at the house where the hoods robbed and killed the old man, they are pondering what to do with Linda, the witness they were not expecting to the murder they were not expecting. Jess (John Drew Barrymore) is the cold blooded one who outright says the only thing to do is kill her. The second mainly wants to save himself, and the third has a moral core and just does not want to kill but is afraid of Jess. So this is the very claustrophobic at times hard to watch part of the film where Jess is shocked! shocked I say! that Linda does not want to get romantic with somebody who sees her as a future murder victim.

Meanwhile, outside the house, the entire department - led by Pete's dad - is trying to figure out where Linda is. The police procedural part is a welcome diversion from what is going on in the house with the hoods. Barrymore sure looks the part of an amoral killer. In fact he played several of them. He just doesn't really have the acting chops for the job. Jerry Mathers doesn't get a chance to do much with this role, the same year he will leap to stardom in "Leave it to Beaver".

The standout here is Betty Garrett as the witness/hostage to the three hoods. Mainly known at that time as the comic relief in the MGM musicals of the late 40s and early 50s, she shows she can really hold her own in a drama as she tries to talk the hoods out of doing away with her, as she hopes time is on her side.