Echec au gang

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.

"The Shadow on the Window" is a rather anonymous and insignificant 50s drama/thriller, but it's engaging enough for as long as it lasts, thanks to a few interesting story ideas and a decent cast. I'm sure that director William Asher envisioned making a fantastic hostage thriller with film-noir echoes, in the vein of "The Desperate Hours" that was released two years earlier, but he eventually had to settle for a modest B-movie without spectacular action footage or Humphrey Bogarts in the cast. Little 7-year-old Petey accompanies his mother to a large and remote farmhouse. It's her first working day as a secretary for a wealthy, elderly businessman, while Petey plays outside in the garden. Unfortunately enough, three ruthless young thugs decided that today they would invade the home of the old man and rob him. Just when little Petey looks through the window, he witnesses how the man is brutally killed by the assailants. Petey promptly goes into a severe state of shock, runs off into the streets and gets picked up by friendly truck drivers. While his mother is kept hostage by unprepared but extremely dangerous criminals, Petey is reunited with his father – and police detective – Tony Atlas but he remains in shock and unable to explain what is happening to her. It's definitely a good plot for a tense and forceful "race-against-the-clock" thriller, but the screenplay nevertheless suffers from a couple of defaults and clichés. I really don't understand, for example, why the hoodlums remain in the house or why one of them has to be a sensitive one. The leader of the pack, John Drew Barrymore, tries really hard to look handsome and nihilistic, and he probably dreamed of becoming the next James Dean. The little kid who portrayed Petey, on the other hand, became quite famous thanks to his role in the TV-series "Leave it to the Beaver".

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.

Starring Jerry Mathers as the shell-shocked child who witnesses an assault on his mother, Shadow On the Window is a decent 'B' film with a solid cast and a decent script. Jerry's dad, a police officer, is played stoically by Phil Carey and mom is Betty Garrett, decent as a woman under constant threat from three stereotypical teen bad boys. One of the boys is played by Corey Allen, who revisited the role in the similarly themed Key Witness (1960), and the others are John Drew Barrymore--apparently channeling the spirit of an evil Dobie Gillis--and lovable lunk Gerald Sarracini. Beach Party director William Asher displayed his serious side here, and cinematographer Kit Carson got some nice set-ups during the climactic chase scene across roof tops and through subway tunnels. I'd love to know where this was filmed--perhaps somewhere in the Imperial Valley of California?

Home invasion movies were popular during this period (1950's), maybe as a way of injecting fear into audiences from comfortably expanding suburbs. Here three young hoods invade an old man's home, kill him, while traumatizing the young son with his mother who's there as a stenographer. Unbeknownst to the hoods is that mom's the wife of a cop sergeant, so when the speechless boy is found, a police hunt is launched, led by the agonized husband father. So what will the quarreling hoods do with hostage mom as the cops close in.

It's an interesting cast with Barrymore Jr. as the murderous hood, Corey Allen from Rebel Without a Cause (1955) as the conflicted gang member, and Jerry Mathers of Leave It To Beaver (1957- 63) as the unfortunate boy. Also, probably shouldn't overlook actress Garrett as the mom, whose budding musical career was stymied by the Hollywood blacklist.

All in all, the flick's a pretty good suspenser of the sort that would soon transfer to TV, maybe The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Barrymore makes a convincingly nasty hood, while Garrett bears up as the terrified mom, even as Mathers manages a frozen face as the traumatized boy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised his performance helped get him the defining Beaver role. There're also some good action sequences like the chase over rooftops that help pick up the indoor menace scenes. Also, battling among the three hoods offers interesting personality clashes, especially the woman-protecting Joey. Is he really stupid or just quietly enigmatic. On the whole, however, the 76-minutes is nothing special, but should keep watchers entertained as the crime drama plays out in fairly suspenseful fashion.