Cry Terror! (1958)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Memorable, crazy movie

best movie i've ever seen.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

With a ruthless if wildly implausible plot full of coincidences and catastrophes averted by just seconds, 'Cry Terror!' doesn't quite match the elegance of most of Andrew & Virginia Stone's other location-shot thrill rides, but you probably won't care too much as a superb cast, magnificent location photography and Howard Jackson's creepy 'psychological' score all do their stuff under the baton of maestro Stone.The acting as in all Stone's films is consistently good. Rod Steiger's gang are a seriously mean bunch, and it speaks volumes that even Neville Brand - explicitly identified as both a drug addict and a convicted rapist - is frightened of Steiger.

"Cry Terror," from 1958 is not a big-budget film, but it holds the viewer throughout. It's the story of a man, James Mason, who is duped into making small bombs which he believes are for government use. Only later does he realize that he made them for a criminal who intends to extort money by placing them on airlines and threatening to detonate them if the money is not paid. He and his family are kidnapped, and his wife (Inger Stevens) is used to collect the money so it seems as if he is the actual guilty party.Rod Steiger is the bad guy, and Jack Klugman, Neville Brand, and the nearly unrecognizable Angie Dickinson make up his gang, each with their own part to play.Without giving anything away, the story is preposterous at times but always suspenseful and effective. Steiger is terrific as a dangerous man whose quiet orders belie a violent temperament. Dickinson is only 26 here and brunette but her sultry voice and gorgeous figure are the same. Brand does well as a scary psychotic, and Klugman is good as a man under Steiger's domination. Mason is appropriately harried.The workhorse role belongs to Inger Stevens, a natural beauty who rose to fame in the TV series "The Farmer's Daughter" and who took her own life, after several unsuccessful attempts, in 1970. In a way, one of her tries at suicide occurred during the filming of "Cry Terror" when she and Rod Steiger suffered carbon monoxide poisoning during a tunnel scene at the end of the film. She refused medical treatment, stating that she wanted to die. She gives an excellent performance in this movie, that of an hysterical, panicked, and ultimately nearly catatonic mother who fears for her husband and young daughter and her own assault by Brand. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Steiger and Mason are so underplayed, she comes off at times as overacting. She was, however, a wonderful and appealing actress who might have gone on to a much bigger career had she lived. She had it all - or so it seemed.This is a good movie loaded with the New York City atmosphere of the '50s, though in one scene, it looked as if Stevens was headed for Brooklyn using the Holland Tunnel. You'll never get there that way.

I enjoyed this picture. No, not perfect, but if it comes on at 1:15 AM and you can't sleep, is kinda fun... full of nostalgic views of the world of 1958, when things seemed simpler, and everything in view was American Made! Yes, Chrysler cars everywhere.. Furnishings of 1958 were a particular delight, full-wall-length draperies, long-low "moderne" couches, vacuum-tube electronics abound, (25" black and white TV's), Cute Women in dresses, real-world locations shot to see the life of '58 USA as it really looked. Gives one a feeling of wanting to go there and live a life of blissful ignorance of any racial, economic, religious, disease caused strife, and just relax with a gang of Psycopaths and enjoy the cool cars, and snappy dialog... FUN.

The story packs a punch. OK, as suggested in the summary, there are far more global forms of terrorism now. But this sort still exists and still is awful.Neville Brand stands out as giving the best performance. Rod Steiger is good too but maybe a little studied. James Mason turns in an extremely atypical performance, right from our first view of him. He seems more dithery than a James Mason character ought to, even under the tense circumstances involved.Angie Dickinson is very good as a nasty, tough participant in the plot against Mason, his wife, their little daughter, the passengers of an airline, and the country. But Inger Stevens, the wife, is so shrill it's hard to view her as a heroine.It's a strange production. All the cars are from the Chrysler Corporation. This happened a lot in TV shows of this time but less frequently in movies.