Storm Fear (1955)

 

A friend of mine recently pointed out a cool YouTube channel to me called Full Moon Matinee. The guy who runs the channel posts Film Noir movies, adding an introduction and an intermission where he--as "the Detective"--makes intelligent observations about the movie and gives us background on the actors. It's a great channel--great selection of films and intelligent commentary.

It's through this channel that I discovered 1955's Storm Fear. Dan Duryea plays Fred,  a failed author who has brought his wife and kid to a remote mountain cabin because of his health. He has a lung disease and the mountain air is supposedly good for him.

But when his brother Charlie (Cornel Wilde) shows up, things get dangerous. Charlie and his friends--another man and a woman--have just robbed a bank. Charlie's been shot in the leg and they need a place to hide out. Tensions rise, mostly because Charlie's fellow robber Benjie (Stephen Hill) is obviously nuts and Charlie can only barely keep him under control.

The evolving situation involves a lot of melodrama--Charlie once had a thing for Fred's wife. Fred is angsting over his failure as a writer and feels like a failure as a husband & father. Fred's son David starts to think that Charlie is pretty cool and wants to run off with him. Charlie and Fred's wife--it turns out--once had a thing for each other. And there's soon doubt over who David's real father is. The "moll" of the gang (played beautifully by Lee Grant) is a bit of an obnoxious drunk. 

In a weaker movie, this could have descended into cliched Soap Opera territory. But a good script and a strong cast allow the melodrama to add to the overall tension.

When Charlie learns from a radio report that the police will be searching the area, the gang forces David to lead them over the mountain to the highway, though the deep snow makes this a dangerous endeavour.  Also, Benji is working up the courage to back-shoot Charlie and take the bank loot for himself. Pursing them is Hank (Dennis Weaver), a handyman who also has a thing for Fred's wife.

Cornel Wilde was always good in a Noir film and its a treat to see Duryea in a Noir film in which he does not play a bad guy. Stephen Hill goes on to play the lead in Mission: Impossible's first season and later the grumpy DA on Law and Order, so its fun to watch him play a bad guy who is probably a few marbles short of a full bucket. And it really is impressive for a movie to toss in as much melodrama as does this one and still make it work effectively as a crime film. 

I generally provide a clip from movies I review, but in this case, I'll just share the entire movie from the Full Moon Matinee channel. Don't skip past "the Detective's" commentaries--he's worth listening too.