The Girl in Black Stockings

What can you say about a movie whose three female stars are Anne Bancroft, Marie Windsor and Mamie Van Doren? Well, that none of them is used at anywhere near her full potential (except maybe Van Doren, the sum of whose potential is exhausted at first glimpse). And that's basically the problem with this little tailfins-era whodunit about a serial killer at a Utah mountain lodge. Its very real potential is never delivered. The characters and plot strands are handled perfunctorily, mechanically; they're interesting and offbeat but not satisfyingly developed, so the solution comes as a bad surprise and something of a cheat. Owner of the lodge, Ron Randell, is a psychosomatically paralyzed woman-hater nursed by his doting sister (Windsor). Les Barker (not to be confused with Les Baxter, who wrote the score!) loses no opportunity to display his physique poolside as a vacationing L.A. attorney who's wooing the diffident Bancroft. Van Doren does her platinum-blonde bombshell shtik and John Dehner, as the sheriff, seems to have wandered in from a Western shooting nearby. The movie looks good, in a simplified, populuxe way, and winds up like a better-than-average TV drama from circa 1957. Too bad: The Girl in Black Stockings had all the makings of a more interesting movie.

The Girl in Black Stockings is directed by Howard W. Koch and written by Richard Landau and Peter Godfrey. It stars Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, Mamie Van Doren, Ron Randell, John Dehner and Marie Windsor. Music is by Les Baxter and cinematography by William Margulies.

When a party girl is found murdered at a Utah hotel, everyone is under suspicion.

Miserable predatory creatures!

One of the definitions of the low budget drive-in movie, The Girl in Black Stockings is an odd and fascinating picture. In core essence it's a standard murder mystery piece, a sort of minor Ten Little Indians only with kooky overtones.

She'd get on that dance floor and fry eggs!

The characterisations, performed by a wide scope cast list, are firmly in the realm of the off kilter or suspiciously suspect! While some of the scripted dialogue is priceless and pungent with noirish tones. Plus there is lots of smoking going on to emphasise the noirish fever.

I'm gonna have to raise taxes to build a morgue!

The acting is all over the place, mind, with Tarzan leading the way doing some smell the fart acting, while others are overwrought in delivery of script. Yet the up and down acting fits into the grand scheme of Utah weirdo style, further accentuated by the swirly Gothic musical score.

Nutty and fruity, corny yet crisp, it's a fun experience. Plus there's Van Doren, who had to have had the widest mouth of all circa the 1950s. 7/10

Frankly, this a lame "B" flick, with hilarious dialogue, great locations and uneven performances.

To even utter the phrase "film noir," in conjunction with this film, is ludicrous. Some of the comparisons found in previous posts are mind-boggling.

Disposable characters, inane conversations and an annoying soundtrack are buffered by a wonderful setting - a kitschy, picture-perfect motel, straight out of a retro-fanatic's dream. Man, I want to stay at the "Parry Lodge" for a weekend!!

Every time actor Ron Randell opens his mouth, you know you're in for some scenery-chewing, par none. Lex Barker is, well, Lex Barker. "Sheriff" John Dehner comes across the least scathed, although as a previous comment did point out, he appears to have wandered in from another movie set.

All in all, worth a viewing, just to see what it meant to stay in a "motel" before Holiday Inn and Ramada ruined the experience.

UPDATE: Lodge is still up and running - see parrylodge.com!

Unbelievable murder-mystery centering around an upscale lodge in Utah, wherein sheriff John Dehner (in a cowboy hat) investigates the gruesome slaying of a blonde actress, a "man-hating witch" who had plenty of enemies. Soon, more bodies start popping up, the main suspects being: Lex Barker as the local he-man (with his navel judiciously covered at the pool), Ron Randell as an anti-social quadriplegic, Anne Bancroft as his wet-nurse, Mamie Van Doren as a model, and Larry Chance as Indian Joe (Chance appears to believe his character is a Wooden Indian instead of a Drunken Indian). Low-budget adaptation of Peter Godfrey's short story "Wanton Murder", this B-flick might have been a hoot had it been directed with some flair. Unfortunately, Howard W. Koch (who later became a famous producer) sets up this whodunit like a plodding amateur, and most of the acting is atrocious (including La Bancroft). Van Doren has an oddly surreal tipsy scene that rates as pure camp and Dan Blocker is fun as a leering bartender (how come he isn't a suspect?), but the poor writing defeats Dehner and Randell. The title is mysteriously irrelevant, however the setting is unusual and the black-and-white cinematography isn't bad. Les Baxter's melodramatic score heightens the ridiculousness, but serious movie-lovers will only scoff. ** from ****

This late fifties whodunit has some interesting credits. It was directed by the able and eclectic Howard Koch, and features three quite different actresses in major roles,--Mamie Van Doren, Anne Bancroft and Marie Windsor. Suave character man John Dehner is cast as the local lawman; ex-Tarzan Lex Barker is the male lead; Stuart Whitman and Dan Blocker have small roles; and Barker wrote the music score. This is the only movie I have ever seen that features a murder suspect who is a bitter, woman-hating man, psychosomatically paralyzed from the neck down, who can't even pour his own drinks or light his own cigarettes. Ron Randell plays him marvelously, and had the film been directed by Ingmar Bergman would surely have won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I wouldn't quite call this movie trashy, but it has a trashy feel to it, as it comes across in some ways as a sort of Southwest version of Peyton Place crossed maybe with Anatomy Of a Murder, the small-town black and white mood of which it strangely anticipates. Everyone in this movie has a secret. The question is, whose secret is murder? The pacing isn't strong here, and the dialog is variable. William Margulies' photography is excellent, however; and the settings,--the motel resort and small desert town--are perfectly realized. There is a nice feeling for people whose lives have fallen just short of the big time, and who are angry about it. As a result, more than in most movies, everyone seems more than capable of being a killer. I especially like the sense of isolation in the film, and with it the edge of danger. As with so many crime pictures of its era, it seems to be trying to say something about American life, and how materialism and ambition are destroying it. With its acerbic invalid in one corner, and its muslceman in the other, and all the beautiful women gallivanting about and making life miserable for everyone, this one, with sharper writing and a sense of the absurd, might really have risen and become an Antonioni-like commentary on the American Dream. As it stands, it doesn't come close, though some of its characters and images linger in the mind long after its over.