Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Zipper69 First off - did anybody else notice the close resemblance of James Lanphier who played the Landlord and Ross Martin? When Lanphier walked into frame I thought for the longest time that HE was a probable suspect... (Do a Google image search for James Lanphier to see what I mean)Anywhoo, a good solid, police procedural with a number of plot holes that didn't spoil the fun.Lee Remick, was gorgeous and gave a convincing show of terror, Stefanie Powers when SHE was menaced in turn turned into a shivering wreck.Glenn Ford was personable and believable as an FBI agent and from telling somebody he'd "never had to shoot anybody" managed to up his body count by the movie's end.The final crowd scenes at Candelstick Park added tension but kinda telegraphed what the finale would be...

JohnHowardReid This faithful adaptation of a roman policier with a screenplay by the Gordons themselves, seems a big strange when transplanted to American soil, hearing American accents instead of British, English dialogue instead of French. In this sort of film, the actor who plays the detective is all important and Glenn Ford just doesn't display the magnetism and the vitality for the part – especially when viewed against say, Jack Hawkins or Jean Gabin. He is just glum, old, ever-plodding Glenn Ford, never smiling, and just going through his paces like a dead-pan automaton. Lee Remick is no better as the heroine. Furthermore, she is not very attractively made up or costumed, and her whiny, raspy accent is a considerable irritation. The rest of the players, however, are definitely a decided improvement. Ross Martin, for instance, delivers a stand-out performance as the asthmatic psychopath; Stefanie Powers can look frightened most effectively; and there are some engrossing characterizations by Ned Glass, Patricia Huston and Al Avalon. Next to the acting, the second most important feature in this type of film is the milieu – and this comes across well. Location filming is a major asset here, plus the dynamic film editing with abrupt cutting from one scene to another that's totally unexpected and keeps everyone in the audience right on their toes – which as just as well, for the plot itself offers little that is exciting and almost nothing that could be described as terrifying. You might argue that time has taken the edge off this excitement, but I saw this film on first release, and I felt about it then as I do now, namely that as an experiment in terror, it is a fizzle. True, it does have suspense and tension – but not enough!Fortunately, there are compensations: Ross Martin's engrossing portrayal and Phillip Lathrop's cinematography. Plus an atmospheric music score by Henry Mancini that – aside from the credit suspense theme – is not heard to its best advantage in the movie itself. This blunder will certainly disappoint his fans like me, who have heard this great music on his sound track recording.

Spikeopath Experiment in Terror is directed by Blake Edwards and adapted to screenplay by Mildred and Gordon Gordon from their own novel called Operation Terror. It stars Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Stefanie Powers and Ross Martin. Music is by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Philip H. Lathrop.Film begins with bank teller Kelly Sherwood (Remick) driving home through night time San Francisco, over head shots capturing the cityscape for backdrop purpose. Henry Mancini's haunting soundtrack hovers over Kelly's car in spectral fashion, until she arrives home in Twin Peaks and enters her garage, things fall silent as she gets out the car. She senses she's not alone, and she's right. A man whose face is obscured grabs her and puts one hand over her mouth, he tells her in his asthmatic voice that he knows everything about her and her young sister, and that if she doesn't do as she is told then pain, misery and death awaits them. She's to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works, he will even cut her in for 20%, what a swell fella eh?It's a brilliant opening, stylish film making meets a thematic atmosphere full of fear, tension and sexual menace. What follows is a superbly crafted movie, a bona fide thriller that is concerned with characterisations, concerned with wringing out maximum amounts of suspense by way of suggestions and conversations, there is no need to spill blood here, the threat and the fear is palpable throughout. The police procedural aspects of the story, headed by Ford's trusty and stoic detective, are played out with intelligence and always hold fascination appeal. Especially as the little snatches of time we spend with the villain leaves us in no doubt about how cruel and vile he can be.Edwards takes his time to build the story, stopping every once in a while to unfurl a special scene to reinforce the drama. Stand outs include a classic sequence in a room of mannequins and a genuinely chilling piece where our villain dresses in drag. Then there is the justifiably lauded finale played out at Candlestick Park during the culmination of a major league baseball game, thrilling in its execution and a fitting closure to the screw tightening approach favoured by Edwards. All the while Mancini's musical accompaniments act as a foreboding presence, dovetailing with the themes and characterisations at work in the play.Visually it's also impressive, filmed in gritty black and white, Edwards uses intense close-ups to ramp up the tension, dallies with angles to enforce emotional turmoil, while Lathrop always keeps the lenses stark, the contrasts rich and the use of angled shadows is most striking. Cast are superb, Remick makes for a strong heroine in spite of the constant peril she faces, Ford is a bastion of strength and virtue and Powers exudes youthful vulnerability without appearing as a whiny adolescent. Then there is Martin, turning in one of the most menacing villain turns of the 60s, it's a lesson in how to play evil without actually being extremely physical. As the character shifts from being a murdering predator to a man of heart who cares for a girlfriend's child, Martin convinces enough to make it a frightening proposition.Highly recommended. 8/10

dougdoepke No need to recap the plot. Director Edwards had a good feel for the bizarre, starting with his seminal TV series Peter Gunn (1958-61), which featured a number of bizarre characters unusual for 50's TV. Here, that flair shows up, for example, with the proto-human manikin scene and with Red Lynch in scary drag. In my book, Edwards was a more innovative force in Hollywood than he's been credited with.This is a decent thriller, a big hit on first release. But seeing it now, it seems much of that initial drawing power came from the many bizarre little touches novel to audiences of the time. Because, as a thriller, the movie is stretched too long and paced too deliberately to be really effective. Add to that a couple of dangling sub-plots—the unexplained manikin lady and the extraneous Asian mother and son—and you may wonder what went on in the writers' room. And, of course, there are those puzzling aspects to the crime, well enumerated by other reviewers. I suspect another reason the film's over-stretched was to accommodate big name Glenn Ford, then at the height of his popularity. He does a good job here as the relentless FBI agent. But truth be told, those sequences could have been profitably shortened with a lesser-known actor since the role is basically a routine cop one. All in all, this is a movie of fascinating touches and parts rather than a tightly sustained whole. Thus, it's still worth seeing. But for good, sharp impact, there are some better ones from that same period still around, e.g. Narrow Margin (1952); Beware, My Lovely (1952); The Killer Is Loose (1956). So catch up with them if you haven't already.