Private Property

Private Property is a great little neo noir vehicle, outstanding in that its inherent quality, belies the shoestring budget upon which it was made. All the creative elements fortuitously came together for writer/director Leslie Stevens. He gets a great central performance from Corey Allen as deviously shrewd drifter Duke, as well as a distinctly arousing turn from Kate Manx as domestic goddess Ann, seemingly the object of every man's desire, apart from her husband Roger. Then on top of all that, he manages to score the highly experienced Ted McCord as his cinematographer. He must have thought all his Christmases had come at once.

One part home invasion, one part voyeuristic thriller, and one part social critique, considering it was made 60 years ago, Private Property still manages to be quite confronting. It's fairly upfront in its treatment of sexual themes and desires. It looks remarkably good for a film made on such a low budget, even going as unexpectedly far, as featuring some quite extensive underwater photography. I have to be honest and balance my praise, when adding the musical soundtrack however is frequently over-intrusive and not always quite appropriate, for the accompanying scenes.

Stevens comfortably helms the project making excellent use of both his car and home to site the majority of the action. On the evidence of this film, one feels it's a pity we didn't see more cinema work from him, as for much of his career, he worked in theatre, later transitioning to television, where he is arguably best remembered as being the creator of the original Outer Limits.

Two drifters become obsessed with and annoy a frustrated house wife in the Hollywood hills until things become dangerous. This feels like most indie movies today that are a few people in a house and then some stuff happens, so I wasn't suprised to see that it's being remade.

This was scandalous in the 50s and even earned an X rating in the UK. It's mostly innocuous, but it does have a very dark ending with some implied things. Overall, I'm not sure it's the "lost classic" as I've read and really dosnt need a modern remake. I guess it was way ahead of its time, but I generally don't really like the films it's way ahead of. Fortunately, it's only 80 minutes and the last 10 minutes was great.

Watched on Kanopy.

It wouldn't be fair for me to rate this 1959 flick. On one hand, it has historical significance since it was one of the first movies denied release by American censors who found it forbidden fruit. On the other hand, as entertainment, I found the 79-minutes unfortunately too talky and boring to endorse. Hence, it doesn't seem fair to choose between the two poles.

The flick starts off well enough, at a filling station where two seedy drifters, Duke and Boots, look to fill their empty lives by pursuing a wealthy blonde for seduction purposes. Now that's a promising start, but from there on, except for the brief ending, the narrative flattens out into a basically one-note affair. After all, how long does it take wily Duke to infiltrate blonde Ann's hilltop mansion where she usually lives alone, her businessman husband out making money. Then too, it's a stretch that wealthy hubby would leave her alone without household help.

Thus, it appears budget constraints flatten the main storyline into a series of hilltop one-on-one talk-fests. Sure, Duke wants to insinuate himself into Ann's life by pretending to be a gardener. But needed suspense in his manuevers is sorely lacking. Still and all, the hilltop setting does furnish a good scenic view of greater LA that kept me watching.

All in all, it looks like the indie effort was a well-intended effort to escape the bonds of 50's studio productions held captive by a strict censorship code. But what might have been cutting edge then, seems banal now when much looser public standards prevail.

My advice: if you're looking for more than mainly talky flatlining, skip it. But if you're interested in former forbidden fruit grab it and bite.

This movie has a high artistic quality. It was filmed by experienced veteran Ted McCord in the typical clinically clean black and white-style of the era. The main setting is an elegant house in the sun drenched hills of Los Angeles - and the location is very well used indeed. The bright setting is sharply contrasted by sexual frustration. The main character seems to be a piece of decoration for her husband, a successful, mainly absent businessman. Her constant stereotype Pepsodent smile renders her somewhat subhuman - well a part of the property. Yet she has a yearning which is unfulfilled. At one point she pulls a broad black belt around her neck, pulls it tight and lies down on the bed. Her lonelyness is relieved by two doubtful characters, one of them a young Warren Oates. Very well filmed underwater swimming pool scenes at the dramatic climax at the end.

Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates), two young thugs, hold up a California gas-station owner. Duke, virile and savage, taunts the slower and psychologically-confused Boots because he has never made a sexual conquest.

This film came about due to press agent Stanley Colbert, who hoped to move Leslie Stevens from Broadway (where he was a playwright) to Hollywood. Along the way, Colbert introduced Sevens to Kate Manx, and they were soon wed. The three combined birthed Daystar Productions, and with it, "Private Property".

The hiring of the camera crew happened by accident, and was fortuitous; the picture looks great. Colbert hired a nobody, Conrad Hall. And Hall brought with him a minor legend: Ted McCord, a veteran of "East of Eden" and "Treasure of Sierra Madre", as well as scores of others. Hall today is better known than McCord, as he went on to great things over the next three decades -- not only as a regular under Stevens on "Outer Limits", but as the cinematographer for such classics as "Cool Hand Luke" and "American Beauty".

How long has this film been buried? Apparently it had become largely lost and forgotten because it couldn't get a production seal in America. Today, the film is tame, but apparently not then. Making a profit in Europe before disappearing, in 2016 it was recovered and given the proper Blu-ray treatment. If nothing else, it deserves this for the names involved: Leslie Stevens (creator of "The Outer Limits"), Corey Allen ("Rebel Without a Cause" and Warren Oates ("Dillinger"). These three men had only just begun in 1960, but were each soon giants in their own way.

But it also stands on its own as an interesting crime film. Part home invasion story, part "Without Warning", and part "Of Mice and Men", it is hard to categorize. Not quite film noir, but still something different. It almost evokes the feeling of a BBS film, something independent that might have been more at home in the 1970s. Coupled with strong performances from the three leads, it is worth tracking down. There is an unusual exchange between Manx and Allen when he reveals that he has been squatting next door that has to be seen to be believed, it is so hypnotic.

The Blu-ray's greatest feature is the film itself, but it also has some highly informative liner notes and an 18-minute interview with photographer Alexander Singer. Singer covers a wide range of topics, from his time on Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss", to the more technical explanations of "softening" the lens and how it has been accomplished over the years.