There's nothing in the least splashy about this crime thriller. No car chases, so squib charges, no fireballs, no big fat ugly guns, and very little violence, but it gets the job done in ways that make you nostalgic for the pre-junk period.
It's crisply photographed in wide screen black and white. Mancini's score leans heavily on cool low woodwinds and piano and is used sparingly. Decent use is made of San Francisco locations without that pastel tourist mecca being thrust in your face. I do wish, though, that some day a good movie would have a scene shot in my favorite pub, The Edinburgh Castle on Geary. I've only seen another of my favorites in one movie, Julius's in the Village, before it went gay. A scene was shot there for "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," I think. I wonder if my initials are still scratched on the men's room wall. It was a filthy saloon festooned with cobwebs and may not have been painted in the last quarter of a century. Where was I?
Oh yes, "Experiment in Terror." Well, the acting is like the rest of the movie, solid, professional, craftsmanlike. Stylishly attractive Lee Remick, a bank teller or cashier or something, is coerced by asthma-riddled Ross Martin into stealing lots of cash from the bank. Contrary to instructions, she contacts FBI agent Glenn Ford. Ford and his colleagues go about coaching her in how to respond and what to do next. There are some unforeseen slip-ups along the way. The landlord of a murder victim's apartment is introduced as an early lesson in how to portray a gay guy on screen.
Martin kidnaps Remick's younger sister, Stephanie Powers, and hauls her away to a deserted clothing storehouse where, during a scene of intense expectation, he makes her undress. The men in this early 60s audience may have been panting to see more of the teen-age Powers, but all they get to see is an unflattering bra and half slip that look like they were issued by the United States Army. Well, I didn't say the movie was perfect.
But seeing her undress reminded me that women are built differently from men, entirely aside from reproduction. If a dress zips up the back, a woman can reach over her shoulder to the zipper with one hand, and up behind her back under her ribs with the other, and unzip the dress using both hands. No human male is capable of such contortions, not even those who wear dresses. Pardon my divagations but the voices tell me to do it.
Maybe a bit too much time is spent at the ballgame in Candlestick Park. I was never a Dodger fan, even when they were in Brooklyn. And one closeup of Don Drysdale's face goes a long way, although he pitches one ball that makes me leap in my seat a little. Some spectacle is added to the shoot out but it still comes across as forced and a little dumb. Martin is alone in the middle of Candlestick Park, surrounded by cops and covered from above by a police helicopter. He's been cool and under control all along. But what does he do now? He panics and begins shooting at the helicopter.
Martin isn't a one-dimensional villain though. He is having an affair with an attractive Chinese woman, attends church with her, and is fond of her son to the extent of paying for the kid's hip operation, visiting him, bringing him presents. It's this sign of humanity that trips him up at the end. A touch of humanity is also given to Ned Glass as an informant who sells criminal information to the highest bidder. He's all business. But after coming face to face with Remick and her threatened sister, he decides not to sell his information to the papers but to hand it over to the police to use as they will. This costs him his life. And the cops look dispassionately down at his body and one of them remarks, "Well, I guess you can't expect to live forever in his line of business." No good deed goes unpunished.
You should see this if you have the time. If it's never gripping, it's still never less than interesting. Fans of current action movies might not enjoy it much. It's in black and white, and nobody's head gets wrenched out of its socket.
It's crisply photographed in wide screen black and white. Mancini's score leans heavily on cool low woodwinds and piano and is used sparingly. Decent use is made of San Francisco locations without that pastel tourist mecca being thrust in your face. I do wish, though, that some day a good movie would have a scene shot in my favorite pub, The Edinburgh Castle on Geary. I've only seen another of my favorites in one movie, Julius's in the Village, before it went gay. A scene was shot there for "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," I think. I wonder if my initials are still scratched on the men's room wall. It was a filthy saloon festooned with cobwebs and may not have been painted in the last quarter of a century. Where was I?
Oh yes, "Experiment in Terror." Well, the acting is like the rest of the movie, solid, professional, craftsmanlike. Stylishly attractive Lee Remick, a bank teller or cashier or something, is coerced by asthma-riddled Ross Martin into stealing lots of cash from the bank. Contrary to instructions, she contacts FBI agent Glenn Ford. Ford and his colleagues go about coaching her in how to respond and what to do next. There are some unforeseen slip-ups along the way. The landlord of a murder victim's apartment is introduced as an early lesson in how to portray a gay guy on screen.
Martin kidnaps Remick's younger sister, Stephanie Powers, and hauls her away to a deserted clothing storehouse where, during a scene of intense expectation, he makes her undress. The men in this early 60s audience may have been panting to see more of the teen-age Powers, but all they get to see is an unflattering bra and half slip that look like they were issued by the United States Army. Well, I didn't say the movie was perfect.
But seeing her undress reminded me that women are built differently from men, entirely aside from reproduction. If a dress zips up the back, a woman can reach over her shoulder to the zipper with one hand, and up behind her back under her ribs with the other, and unzip the dress using both hands. No human male is capable of such contortions, not even those who wear dresses. Pardon my divagations but the voices tell me to do it.
Maybe a bit too much time is spent at the ballgame in Candlestick Park. I was never a Dodger fan, even when they were in Brooklyn. And one closeup of Don Drysdale's face goes a long way, although he pitches one ball that makes me leap in my seat a little. Some spectacle is added to the shoot out but it still comes across as forced and a little dumb. Martin is alone in the middle of Candlestick Park, surrounded by cops and covered from above by a police helicopter. He's been cool and under control all along. But what does he do now? He panics and begins shooting at the helicopter.
Martin isn't a one-dimensional villain though. He is having an affair with an attractive Chinese woman, attends church with her, and is fond of her son to the extent of paying for the kid's hip operation, visiting him, bringing him presents. It's this sign of humanity that trips him up at the end. A touch of humanity is also given to Ned Glass as an informant who sells criminal information to the highest bidder. He's all business. But after coming face to face with Remick and her threatened sister, he decides not to sell his information to the papers but to hand it over to the police to use as they will. This costs him his life. And the cops look dispassionately down at his body and one of them remarks, "Well, I guess you can't expect to live forever in his line of business." No good deed goes unpunished.
You should see this if you have the time. If it's never gripping, it's still never less than interesting. Fans of current action movies might not enjoy it much. It's in black and white, and nobody's head gets wrenched out of its socket.