"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.
Stevens 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.
