STARK FEAR (1962)

Over the decades, Hollywood's Golden Age classic films have nearly been pulverized to dust by exhaustive, glowing critiques. Allow me to pulverize this unknown low-budget thriller-ette distributed by Ellis Films. Who? Ned Hockman was given the directing duties but he abandoned the project over conflicts with the cast. Actor Skip Homeier took over. I imagine he was never more relieved to not be credited. One hopes this psychological exploitation film will be about sixty minutes due to the score alone. Unfortunately, the viewer is stuck for an unbearable extra eleven minutes of soapy opera. 

One might dismiss the sleazy screenplay by Dwight Swain, but dismissing the music score by Lawrence Fisher is impossible. It is the single worst element of this film. The music supporting an oil derrick pounding away in the opening is totally misplaced for an intense drama. Some sections flit from an Oklahoma hoedown to an early Hal Roach film, to schizophrenic terror. The score can be defined as the worst example of leitmotifs. Added annoyance is a sound quality suggesting the score surely was lifted from a decades-old source played by amateur musicians. In an unabashed attempt to copy Bernard Herrman's Psycho score, frantic, dissonant strings accompany an over-the-shoulder camera closeup of Beverly Garland driving a 1960 Buick. Competent performances aside, the film is an ugly account even without a score.

The aforementioned Homeier plays a sadistic—something of an adult role distinction for him—a husband who mentally tortures his wife, Garland. Despicable he. His dead mother fixation explains a lot about the psychotic character inspired by the Hitchcock blockbuster two years prior. When a man loathes a woman—apologies to the Percy Sledge hit—there is little he will not do to impose his hatred upon her. The fuming husband is seen throwing bottles at her mantle picture, breaking its glass before falling to the floor. The Buick floats into the driveway. Ah, “home sweet home.” It is her husband's birthday. There is a cake to help celebrate. She adds a single candle—like the one-year-old he is—and puts a romantic album on the Hi-Fi. He views this simply as a ploy to divert her “affair” with her boss. After viciously verbally abusing her, Homeier has a bipolar moment as they romantically embrace on the couch. While the record spins, oddly superimposed—fading in and out—is footage of an abstract painting on their wall. One may look at an abstract painting and wonder what is the point. So goes their marriage.

Kenneth Tobey—the boss—is up to his knees in Oklahoma crude. A former business rival of Homeier, they have had a long-standing hate relationship. The single, cryptic opening voice-over does not quite divulge this. Tobey is empathetic to Garland's marriage and has come to her aide on more than one occasion. Jealousy runs deep in Homeier's veins and he demands she stop working for Tobey. Never mind that he is on the verge of being fired and currently bringing in little income. Garland tries to stick with her disturbed husband which few moviegoers can figure. She feels it is her wifely duty to locate the disappearing skunk nevertheless. But she cannot. The script salaciously places her into some unlikely, personally dangerous and spooky situations in her discovery. Even stumbling upon a nighttime Comanche celebration dance that could not have been anticipated by her or the audience. Hitting a low point, the script has her raped by a drunken slob—hired by the demented Homeier.

The future of Homeier is of little interest to the moviegoer—indeed it is never revealed. Viewers can take comfort in the fact that his marriage is dissolved. She and Tobey enjoy an exhaustive weekend walking tour of Eureka Springs, Arkansas—through overlapping scenes of the happy couple accompanied by Fisher's goofy 1930s serial music. Garland returns to work for Tobey. He seems to be the right man but he harbors a stark secret.

FORGOTTEN FILMS: TV TRANSITION

Though typically overshadowed by Hollywood's A-list, there were respectable performances by numerous actors and actresses who never became major film stars. A common occurrence was their transition to the new medium of television, often becoming familiar faces in homes across America. These periodic posts offer insight into their transition.

Beverly Garland: Beverly Fessenden (1926-2008)

Beverly Garland started her career with feature films, primarily small parts in a few major productions and the lead in some low-budget films. In her early roles, the versatile actress often seemed to be either at odds with the law or screaming in science-fiction movies. Her film career began on a positive note with a role as Miss Foster in the quintessential film-noir, D.O.A. (1949) starring Edmond O’Brien. As Holly Abbott, she had a strong supporting role in The Miami Story (1954) opposite Barry Sullivan. A series of forgettable westerns and dramas followed. Two Guns and a Badge (1954) and New Orleans Uncensored (1955) to name two. Sprinkled between these films were her singular roles on television programs, initially in The Lone Ranger (1950). Rehearsals at a television studio became more common yet she never left the science fiction genre behind in such cult films as Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, 1956 and as the rather flippant, unsuspecting nurse in the creepy, Not of This Earth, 1957. She was the unfortunate mother in the dark comedy flop, Pretty Poison, 1968.

Her television claim to fame was in the ground-breaking role on Decoy (1957) for its entire thirty-nine episodes. As Casey Jones—seemingly an undercover alias—it was television’s first female policewoman and the first actress to star in a television dramatic series. Garland racked up appearances on most of the popular shows of the Sixties and Seventies with a recurring role as the wife in the short-lived sitcom, The Bing Crosby Show (1964). The “mom” roles became her stock and trade. She was the step-mom to the Douglas boys during the late stages of the long-running comedy, My Three Sons (1960). She found new fame as the well-cast, unaware mom to Kate Jackson in the successful, Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983). She played Ellen Lane for six episodes in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1995). Her last recurring role was nine appearances on the family drama, 7th Heaven (1997).

Note: Garland combined her acting career with a devotion to the hotel that her second husband, Filmore Crank, built and named in her honor. Starting out as a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge, it became a 255-room Spanish Mission-style resort called Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn. In 2014 it was renamed, The Garland.

NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957)

This sixty-seven-minute, independently released sci-fi implausibility film was produced and directed by Roger Corman for his Los Altos Productions. Distributed by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation, Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna wrote a compelling and fast-paced story about an alien who comes to Earth in an attempt to save his planet. However, his methods are anything but legal. The film's interesting opening title graphics have an avant-garde appearance, while an equally appropriate music score is in support. It is a worthy alternative to the typical alien invasion films of this era. Using a meager one hundred grand with a Corman draw, the film pulled in approximately one million dollars. It is a creepy performance by Paul Birch. Pretty spine-tingling for late Fifties audiences, I imagine. 

The people of a distant planet have developed an incurable blood disease. One of its citizens, Birch, is sent to Earth to extract the blood of humans (that's not nice), which may help cure his planet's dying race (good intentions). Birch's subtle, uneven robotic monotone speech pattern makes it hard to pinpoint his origin, whether earthly or planetary. No one seriously questions his constant companion, an aluminum briefcase, stereotypically used by gangsters for money laundering. A more logical inquiry might be why he wears “polar expedition” sunglasses day and night, though obviously not needing mobility assistance. The audience is way ahead of the cast as the opening scene reveals the death behind those shades. If considered, the audience will find implausibility in how the alien got enough cash to buy an upper-class house or how he survived his background credit check. He may have had to secure a home improvement loan, as well, to install a teleportation device needed for transporting blood by the pallet. This surely added to the home's value.

To be his chauffeur and errand boy, Birch hires a young, unemployed hood, Jonathan Haze. A guy the audience does not have much invested in. I assume the well-paid miscreant was useful in selecting the pre-owned Cadillac for his “blind” boss. Eventually joining the two is Beverly Garland, who is assigned as the alien's in-home nurse. Her boss, William Roerick, lets Birch hire her because of the latter's telepathic power over him. Garland thinks nothing of Birch's odd countenance or the arrangement. Throughout most of the movie, she does not take much of anything seriously or suspiciously. To her, nothing could possibly be a problem or dangerous, dismissing concerns that could be attributed to more astute individuals. A somewhat annoying, flippant character interpretation. 

A dose of humor pops up via a Corman player, Dick Miller, as a vacuum salesman. He is about to close his sales pitch when he catches a glimpse of Birch's eyes. Feeling his demise imminent, he pauses, stares directly into the camera, shakes his head from side to side, then does a double-take. Miller's product is put to shame by the blood-vacuuming power of the alien's briefcase. Less humorous is Birch's super-sensitive hearing on Earth. Even an inter-office buzzer sends him into convulsions and gives him an unearthly migraine. Like hearing a modified Harley-Davidson motorcycle with noise-polluting exhaust pipes piloted by an “in your face” rider constantly tweaking the throttle. I digressed there a bit.

Feeling his behavioral pattern may be suspect, Birch reaches for a tube of last resort from his briefcase. Out pops an “umbrella cabbage.” It is truly a laughable special effect prop. It slowly dangles through an open window (no one installs screens in these movies) and encompasses Roerick's entire skull. Birch then plans to “dispatch” Garland back to his planet as an example of what Earth blood can do. Va-va-va-voom! His pursuit of her up the staircase, white eyes glaring, is menacing. Her loud scream temporarily debilitates him as it might any other male. She escapes. He tracks her in his bulbous, waffling Cadillac, sometimes only a few feet away, navigating among the trees. The period Cadillac going off-road is scary enough, seemingly impossible. It is cleverly unsettling. With several traffic violations pending on his home planet, as well as parking in a No Parking Zone on the opposite side of the street on Earth, it is no surprise Birch is not a driving enthusiast. An in-pursuit police car's blaring siren zaps his concentration, and he dies in a crash. His death releases the hold on Garland, who finally has her suspicions about Birch, giving her pause while collapsing in hysteria. The final scene results in an unresolved ending.

Note: In the opening hospital scene, there is another male actor standing in for Paul Birch. It is Birch who exits the Cadillac, but it is someone else in the waiting room, though it is clearly Birch's voice. During the hypnotism of the doctor, the out-of-focus close-up looks more like an overweight Gene Hackman than Paul Birch. The soft focus and backlighting are suspicious. Birch returns to the scene when Garland monitors his vitals. This stand-in appears briefly throughout the first half of the film. Only Corman would be able to explain this. Perhaps he needed transition or filler scenes, and Birch was shooting another film elsewhere, recording the dialogue in a studio. The above photo comparisons help support my observation. In the two center images, note the down-sloping mouth and lips, and the location of the crease in the cheek of the mystery actor when compared to Birch. In addition, the side profile of this actor has more slope from the chin to the neck. And note the different ear lobes.