Wed 27 Nov 2019
Movie Review: THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR (1955).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[6] Comments
THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR. Columbia Pictures, 1955. Jack Kelly, Hildy Parks, Vince Edwards, John Cassavetes, David Cross. Screenwriter-director: Andrew L. Stone.
The moral of this story is simple. Never pick up hitchhikers. That’s the mistake that Gene Courtier (Jack Kelly) makes. Giving a ride to Vince Edwards leads to a gang of three young hoodlums, including a very youthful John Cassevetes, taking over Kelly’s home and terrorizing his wife (Hildy Parks) and two small children.
The set-up is promising, but the fact is that the gang doesn’t really seem to have a plan in mind — first forcing Kelly to sell his car, then holding him for a ransom to be paid by his rich father. They go through the motions, but none of the three has the hair-trigger level of viciousness vthat would keep the viewer (me, that is, in this case) at the edge of his seat.
They also commit too many dumb mistakes, making their ultimate downfall all but preordained, in a wrap-up that, once the police are called in, is all too perfunctory. With the cast that this one has, it’s hardly uninteresting, but given a choice, you’d be better off watching The Desperate Hours instead, a film made the same year, but one that’s far better structured.
November 28th, 2019 at 11:56 am
I tried to watch this years ago, but just couldn’t warm up to it.
The Stones are inoffensive filmmakers, as far as one can see.
But they are just not entertaining, at least to me.
November 28th, 2019 at 11:59 am
Good, bad or indifferent, this film played many theatre dates and was accepted, at least somewhat, for the semi-realistic depictions, of both groups, the hostages, and the gangsters. Should not be a shock that these low life criminals are idiots. Today they would be welfare recipients, assigned individual caseworkers in a vague attempt to make something out of them that they are not.
November 29th, 2019 at 7:28 pm
They all had bad childhoods.
November 29th, 2019 at 9:15 pm
This was a favorite movie trope, even going back to the early thirties, but only a few really got the balance between domesticity and violence right like DESPERATE HOURS, DARK PAST (and its remake), and HE RAN ALL THE WAY HOME really nailing it.
This one plays too much like it was made for television, largely thanks to that cast.
November 30th, 2019 at 9:10 pm
To be fair though Andrew Stone did some excellent suspense films in this era, and this one almost works.
April 2nd, 2020 at 12:42 pm
[…] You probably know Jack Kelly best as James Garner’s co-star in Maverick, in which he portrayed Bart Maverick, brother to Bret (Garner). Outside of television, Kelly also appeared in numerous films throughout the 1950s, including a leading man role in the enjoyable, if somewhat clumsy, thriller The Night Holds Terror (1955) (reviewed here). […]