Stark Fear

(1962) Stark Fear PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

Co-produced and directed by Ned Hockman has Gerald Winslow (Skip Homeier) scolding his wife, Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland) for accepting a desk job from his rival Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey) during when she was trying to celebrate his birthday. And before he breaks up with her, he gets more rough with her, even slapping her around. And then after she makes a call to Cliff to turn down for a job, it is not long before he scolds her some more before he demands for a divorce. She then confides to her best friend, Ruth (Hannah Stone) pledging for her job back. There is no mention about dividing up assets or the house they use to live in, for Gerald appears to just like disappear. When she is informed by her husband's bosses her husband is this close to getting himself fired, she then goes on a search rant, just so she can tell him of the news. And while she does this dumb thing by visiting the same city where he grew up in, she then gets herself assaulted by an old friend of his we find out later it was all part of Gerald's plan in the first place.

If it was not for Ellen's best friend Ruth, she would have made so many dumb and idiotic choices it would not even be worth mentioning. She neither calls the police when her husband assaults her or that during that era or on that environment the police do not care whether women are assaulted or not. Anyways, the does have a good ending but one would have to go through a lot of nonsense to get their. 5 out of a 10 is a respectable thumbs down for me despite those good things.

STARK FEAR stars Beverly Garland as Ellen Winslow, the unfortunate wife of the infantile, sadistic maniac known as Gerald (Skip Homeier), whose hateful madness knows no bounds.

Enter Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey), the nice man for whom Ellen might have worked, if Gerald had allowed it. Cliff knows all about Gerald's issues, and has had just about enough. When Gerald goes missing, Ellen goes looking for him, and the seedy fun begins.

This is a nice, dark journey behind the facade of a rural small town. Mysterious and sort of creepy, Ellen's search leads her into the underbelly of life. Ms. Garland plays it straight, with increasing desperation. The final revelation is quite satisfying...

Ellen Winslow (Beverly Garland) has had enough of her controlling husband Gerald (Skip Homeier) after he gets all cranky on his birthday because she took a job with a Cliff Kane (Kenneth Tobey), a former business rival of his. He says he wants a divorce and splits, but she goes off to find him when his boss says he might be fired. She starts to delve into his past and realizes everything he has told her is lies. Meanwhile, with hubby nowhere to be found, she starts falling for Cliff. This Oklahoma-lensed flick has a few good scenes and some nice B&W photography. Oklahoma folks will no doubt get a kick out of the locations. The creepiest bit has Ellen trapped inside an organ repair shop while being stalked and the machines turn on. But the plot is too foreign to me in terms of its drama. I mean, the lead lady's big conflict is whether or not she should see someone while -- GASP! -- she is still legally married but separated. How the times have changed!

The title, date, subject matter and the presence of Beverly Garland and Kenneth Tobey led me to expect a rough, tough woman-in-peril psycho thriller; which it certainly has elements of, the script including words like 'rape' and 'pervert', the rape taking place in the graveyard of a creepy small southern town straight out of 'Deliverance'.

But heroine Ellen Winslow also pulls herself up by her bootstraps and gets a responsible job, and has several heart to hearts with manless female buddy Ruth Rogers. The film's troubled production in Oklahoma shows in the often disjointed and overwritten end product, and it has a wholly inadequate music score that is often either inappropriately jaunty or simply not up the demands of the dramatic moments. But some of the photography is excellent, and most of the supporting cast (presumably recruited locally) turn in memorable work.

Beverly Garland is winning in the role of Ellen Winslow, a young woman married to a vile, insecure man named Jerry (Skip Homeier), who doesn't like that she got a job when he seemingly made enough money to support both of them. Jerry soon disappears, and poor Ellen is obliged to search for the bum when his boss demands that SHE do something about it! Ellen then runs into a variety of sordid, unsavoury characters while falling in love with her new boss, Cliff Kane (the great Kenneth Tobey).

Ellen is the kind of character that would surely anger feminists, as she tends to blame herself for everything. That said, there's no doubt that Beverly still deeply commits herself to this performance. Ellen IS sympathetic, enough so that you wish she'd have more moments where she got tough and stood up for herself. At her lowest point, she gets raped by Jerry's old friend Harvey Suggett while combing his hometown.

Homeier is excellent at making his character truly despicable. Within seconds of meeting him, we're hoping he comes to a bad end. Tobey is as engaging as he's ever been, although even his character has a "history" that may have colored his actions. The supporting cast consists of unknowns, although the guy playing Suggett is suitably creepy, and Hannah Stone has an effective presence as Ruth, Ellens' friend.

Although "Stark Fear" may wear its influence right on its sleeve (right down to leading lady Garland resembling Janet Leighs' Marion Crane), it does have a very seedy atmosphere that helps to carry it through an amusing 86 minute run time. It's no lost classic, but it should entertain lovers of low budget cinema reasonably well.

Seven out of 10.