L'Emprise de la peur

George Nader is the priest who is visited by a burglar at home scaring the wits out of his young son and his wife, but Nader interrupts the burglar in his act, there is a fight, and accidentally the priest kills the burglar by just throwing a hard object at him, in defence of his son, his wife and himself. He can not be convicted of the homicide, while at the same time he refuses to call it an act of self defence, as the death of the burglar nails his conscience. The burglar succeeded in damaging his wife's eyes at that, and she has to remain blindfolded from now on, until it becomes clear whether she may keep her sight or not. Since the burglar is dead and the priest can't be prosecuted, the case seems to be closed, but the burglar had a father, and here is the complication. The father can't get over it, and starts stalking the reverend's boy. The reverend tries to come to terms with him, which proves impossible. That father never speaks a word throughout the film.

It's an educating study in the mentalities of fathers, a failed father, another father whose boy ends up in hospital, and the father of the criminal, whose depths of unfathomable anguish we can never understand, as little as his way of acting. He probably isn't aware himself of what he is doing in persecuting the boy. What really gives the film some dynamic dimension is the terrific music by Henry Mancini. It is brutal, subconsciously suggestive and horribly intrusive, like a dramatic illustration of the common nightmare of all the protagonists. The film is unique in many ways, as I've never seen any film trying to cope with the same kind of dilemma of conscience, despair and death.

I'm sorry, but. I wasn't afraid of a man who didnt change his clothes for over a week. You could probably smell him two blocks away. George Nader plays a minister and is relatively convincing. Eduard Franz, however, steals the film as the sicko Simmons, who wants some type of revenge for his son being killed by a fastball to the bean of his son by the minister while he was robbing a house. He had it coming. Nice pitching job by Nader; he might have helped the Yankees that year.

Watchable mess just for the Simmons character. The music by Henry Mancini is not very romanic. Nader's son, Michael Collins, would go on to become a great leader of the Irish resistance in Ireland, although the name might just be a coincidence. Don't waste your time on this one.

The reverend George Nader hears noise from his son's bedroom and goes in to investigate. He leaves the lights off to avoid waking the child. When he dimly sees a burglar, he throws a snow globe at him, and kills him. After police lieutenant Harold Stone investigates, he goes home. The papers cover the news, and we see shots of the burglar's father, tailor Eduard Franz, ripping the seams out of a coat with a razor.

Odd things start happening, and eventually Nader concludes that Franz is stalking Nader's son, Tim Hovey. The police refuse to do anything because of lack of evidence.

It's a very slow and very flat build-up, so much so that all the suspense was drained out of the story, and Nader's near-constant, solemn and pastoral demeanor don't help much. There's some good camerawork by DP Russell Metty, including views of the seedy parts of Santa Monica Pier. With Phyllis Thaxter, Reta Shaw and Martin Milner.

This 1957 movie is fairly typical of a certain type of film from the fifties, usually made in black and white, often a thriller or crime drama, heavy on the suspense, with hints of madness, obsession or perversity of some sort in the villain. Most of these movies were made independently, but some studios ground them out, too. This one's a studio job, with a good deal of location shooting, and is a tad better than the average.

Competently directed by Harry Keller, a veteran of this sort of thing, the plot revolves around a gentle, decent minister stalked by the father of a man he killed accidentally during a robbery. Most of the cast is competent if unexciting for the most part, with only Harold J. Stone really outstanding in his role as a police lieutenant. He handles his dialog excellently. The big surprise with with this one is the performance of George Nader in the lead. Never the most compelling of actors, I generally find Nader lacking in credibility in most everything he did. In this picture, however, he's excellent as the upstanding reverend. His acting is well above average for him, and elicits genuine sympathy, from this viewer anyway, and this made watching this otherwise generic movie a pleasant surprise.

Having disturbed and overpowered a burglar in his son's bedroom (No doubt in search of a priceless jigsaw puzzle), church minister George Nader is shocked to find himself at the centre of a homicide case. Who would have imagined that skidding on a toy, seconds before being involved in a head on collision with a flying snow globe would have such tragic consequences?

The relatively tense climax and moralistic denouement only partially mask the fact that much of the plot is just a series of cobbled together contrivances. Terrorized, half blind Phyllis Thaxter contrives to demolish a table lamp and dislodge pictures from the wall as she frantically reels around the room, while hard as nails detective Harold J. Stone contrives to be ultra cynical as Nader shovels more and more clues in his direction. When Nader discovers vital evidence in the form of a tin box full of half smoked dimps, dog ends and roll ups, close to the church bazaar, he bizarrely neglects to hand it in to the police. When he later returns to the spot.....Whaddya know? It's gone!

Home security was clearly low on Nader's list of priorities. Long before the walk-in shower became fashionable, he had a walk-in house. An all too easy target for the passing trade of thieves, prowlers and cops.

Man Afraid is.....Oh Man! A frayed and frazzled stab at film noir. Never rising above routine, a loose retread of the previous year's 'The Killer is Loose', with disturbed loner, Eduard Franz out to avenge the murder of his son paralleling angry, grudge bearing Wendell Corey's eye for an eye fixation in the aftermath of his wife's fatal shooting.