Experiment In Terror

The last of the Columbia Noir series is Experiment in Terror, which isn't really a noir (it's more of a thriller/police procedural) but Blake Edwards directs it as if its noir, with lots of unusual angles and shadows. It was released in 1962, and stars Glenn Ford and Lee Remick.

Remick is a bank teller who arrives home one night and is accosted by a man who tells her she is going to rob the bank for him or he will kill her or her teenage sister (Stefanie Powers). He tells her not to contact the police, but she calls the FBI, and Ford is the agent who takes on her case. For the rest of the film the FBI keeps an eye on her as the man (Ross Martin) gives her instructions on how to go about pulling off the robbery.

There's no experiment here (the film was based on a book called Operation Terror) but there is terror, as Edwards ably manages to give the viewer the creeps. Martin, who was nominated for a Golden Globe award, is particularly creepy, and clever--he has the hand off of the money take place at a sold out Candlestick Park during a Giants-Dodgers game (Don Drysdale plays himself). But, as a criminal in a good crime thriller always is, he isn't as smart as he thinks he is.

Edwards, who would be best known for comedies, made two serious films in '62, also with Days of Wine and Roses, also featuring Remick. He seems to have decided to flex his somber muscles in that year, as both films are humorless.

Ford is a true blue FBI agent, and Remick is fine but bland, but it's Martin that gets the glory here. Ned Glass, as a police informant, also gets a couple of good scenes. It's the ethically challenged that are the interesting characters here. Edwards manages to squeeze out as much as possible, for example a supporting character who is a woman who makes art out of mannequins, which incorporates a wonderfully bizarre set. There's also a sequence of Remick, thinking she is meeting Martin, at a 1920s theme bar (that would be like a 1970s theme bar today).

Martin, would go on to play Artemis Gordon in Wild, Wild West. Gordon was a master of disguise (I loved that show when I was a kid) and he shows a little bit of that here, dressing up like an old lady.

Experiment in Terror is an example of a not-so-great premise being dressed up in some very fancy clothes, and made much more interesting than the script deserves.