Have You Seen It?

Country of Origin: The United States of America. Columbia Pictures presents a Blake Edwards Production. Starring Glenn Ford (John Ripley), Lee Remick (Kelly Sherwood), and Stefanie Powers (Toby Sherwood). Written by the Gordons. Produced and directed by Blake Edwards. Running time: 123 minutes.

At the beginning of Blake Edwards’s Experiment in Terror, a young woman arrives at her home, drives into her garage, and gets out of the car when the garage door closes without her prompting it. She is then grabbed from behind by a man with a wheezing voice who clasps his hand over her mouth. “Nothing is going to happen to you unless you do something foolish,” he tells her. “Then I will kill you.” He threatens to kill her sister and tells her that he has killed before. He knows more about her than a stranger should. “You have a small waist,” he observes. “Measurements thirty-four, twenty-two, thirty-five, right?” Physically unharmed, the psychological violation he has committed against her (and the viewer) is visceral.

The young woman in the garage and at the story’s center is Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick), a bank teller. She is brave, smart, and more than a little out of her depth when dealing with a psychotic killer. As played by Lee Remick, we are entirely convinced of the terror she is experiencing. The difference between seeing and understanding that a movie character is terrified versus seeing and believing a movie character is terrified is the difference between a routine thriller and one on this film’s level, where we are so engaged that even if we want to to look away, we can’t.

The FBI agent who gets involved with the case is John Ripley, played by Glenn Ford in a typically solid performance, and Ripley has a confident professionalism that is quietly reassuring. It is with him as the head of the investigation that the film becomes an FBI procedural as they try to track down the killer before he kills again.

One of the best things about the film is that it is laser-focused on its purpose: it is a pure thriller. There is no romance between the film’s attractive and appealing stars. There is no gratuitous comedy, no social commentary, no crossing of genres to appeal to a wider audience. Its only want is to thrill the audience. It succeeds.

Another of the movie’s best decisions was to film in black-and- white. This is a movie that benefits from its menacing black-and- white film noir cinematography and it is Philip Lathrop, the director of photography, who deserves the credit. At the film’s beginning in the garage, the man victimizing Kelly Sherwood is filmed so he is obscured in dark shadows, but in the same shot, the fear expressed on Kelly’s face is well-lit and this heightens the tension: obvious terror caused by a man that can’t be seen. It is one example of many in the film of the unnerving possibilities of good black-and-white cinematography.

And then there is the score by Henry Mancini. The music’s lurking creepiness underscores the atmosphere of fearful insecurity that pervades the film.

All of the elements in the film, especially the solid performances, the effective score, and the fear-inducing noir cinematography, add up to a movie with only one purpose in mind: to thrill. Experiment in Terror does just that–with a vengeance.

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