La terreur monte

One of the reviews says, avoid comparison with Shadow of a Doubt.

Since it's the identical story with even some of the same dialogue, this is difficult.

Charles Drake stars as a serial widow killer, Johnny Walters. On the run, he returns to his family home, thinking he will be safe there. He is greeted by his mother (Josephine Hutchinson), his sister-in-law Helen (Colleen Miller), and her little son.

A few things happen that make Helen uncomfortable. She becomes suspicious when two "reporters" come to the house to interview a typical family. Johnny of course retires to his bedroom. Later, when he goes out, Helen sees one of the reporters photographing him. Rod Taylor plays the plain-clothes detective posing as a reporter who falls for Helen.

This movie would be okay if it weren't a remake of a much better film. Charles Drake is very handsome - reminded me a little of Joel McCrea - and this is really in the beginning of Rod Taylor's career. The acting is good.

A little trivia for Californians: Colleen Miller married Walter Ralphs. You have perhaps shopped at a grocery store that bears his name. Not bad!

Based on the title, I initially thought Step Down to Terror was going to be a horror film. I soon realized my error. That's fine because I was also up for a good suspense film and always happy to see Rod Taylor. Step Down to Terror isn't completely lacking in suspense, but unfortunately, there just isn't enough of it. For starters, I think the film takes to long in the set-up before it actually gets really interesting. Then when it does get interesting and suspense starts it's fairly quickly snuffed out when the female lead oddly, and unfortunately for everyone involved, including the audience, decides to put everything out there. The very ending scene is odd and seemed like a last minute kind of thing.

Having acted alongside Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Dennis Hopper and Earl Holliman in 'Giant', the 28 year old Rod Taylor continued to get roles alongside high profile actors and actresses until his big break came in 1960 with 'The Time Machine'.

Charles Drake shouts at his landlady who has taken some of the cash he has lying about. She says the next time the policemen ask if he's in, she'll tell them. So Drake goes on the lam, back to his mother's home in California, where he makes nice to her, to Colleen Miller, widow of his brother, and her son, Ricky Kelman. As he courts Miss Miller -- as does plainclothesman Rod Taylor, something darker than expected begins to emerge.

It's a remake of Hitchcock's SHADOW OF A DOUBT, and on its own terms, it's okay, another Universal movie about the darkness that lies at the heart of sunny 1950s America. Of course, because it's a remake of what happens to be my favorite Hitchcock movie, it seems weak in comparison. Still, for an ordinary programmer, it's all right. With Jocelyn Brando and Ann Doran.

Immediately recognizable as a remake of Hitchcock's 'Shadow of a Doubt'. Charles Drake adequately replicates Joseph Cotten's initially bland, innocuous deportment, but the movie, trimmed down in running time and the shedding of several characters, a significant step down from the original, looks formulaic and becomes increasingly defined by Drake's predictable terror by numbers performance.

1) Becoming worryingly irritated and aggressive over an engraved ring. 2) Unconvincingly finding a lame excuse to tear a page from the local newspaper. 3) Colleen Miller's young son receiving a new bicycle puts a drastic spoke in his wheel, sparking bitter memories relating to a cycling incident from his own past. Shortly afterwards he 'accidentally' reverses his car over the gleaming dream machine, instantly reducing it to scrap metal. 4) When the family are selected to partake in a survey involving interviews and photographs, he stays out of sight, retiring to his bed with a mystery illness. 5) The manic, rambling 'world is a jungle' rant, populated only by two faced, rotten to the core, money grabbing hypocrites, hiding behind a wafer thin veneer of respectability.

Colleen Miller takes on the Teresa Wright role of the astute and dutiful family member, who rumbles that there is something monstrous; a dangerous phony lurking behind Drake's outwardly avuncular facade. A remake that need never have been remade. As such, it is rarely more than mildly interesting and moderately entertaining. When it comes to suspense, Hitchcock holds all the cards.