SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Richard Chatten With a ruthless if wildly implausible plot full of coincidences and catastrophes averted by just seconds, 'Cry Terror!' doesn't quite match the elegance of most of Andrew & Virginia Stone's other location-shot thrill rides, but you probably won't care too much as a superb cast, magnificent location photography and Howard Jackson's creepy 'psychological' score all do their stuff under the baton of maestro Stone.The acting as in all Stone's films is consistently good. Rod Steiger's gang are a seriously mean bunch, and it speaks volumes that even Neville Brand - explicitly identified as both a drug addict and a convicted rapist - is frightened of Steiger.

Ed-Shullivan This film is exactly why I like watching the classic 1950's black & white suspense films. From the beginning to the very end it is just bursting with suspense and the caliber of movie stars is top notch. Rod Steiger plays the mastermind psycho extortionist Paul Hoplin who convinces (rather easily) James Mason who plays TV repairman Jim Molner to develop a tiny bomb on the pretense that the TV repairman Jim could get a lucrative government contract to manufacture these tiny bombs. Instead Paul's going to use these tiny bombs to blow up planes in the air filled with passengers if his extortion demand for $500,000.00 is not met.TV repairman Jim has no choice to go along with this devious plan since Jim, his beautiful wife Joan played by Inger Stevens, and their innocent little daughter Patty (Terry Ann Moss) are being held not only as hostages until the ransom money is turned over but the plan is to pin the crime on the gullible bomb maker.Now the extortionist Paul (Rod Steiger) is assisted by a cast of three top notch actors played by Jack Klugman, Neville Brand and Paul's moll, a very young Angie Dickinson in holding the Molner family hostages. Neville Brand plays Steve, a nervous pill popping sexual predator who just can't wait to get his filthy hands on the hot looking momma Joan Molner when he is left alone to keep an eye on Joan. Jack Klugman plays Vince, the thug who isn't afraid to use either a knife or a gun to keep the Molner family obeying his commands. Angie Dickinson plays Eileen Kelly and within the first 30 minutes we find out she is the mastermind Paul's moll and a cool and calculating killer who wants that half a million dollars more than anything.As Paul maintains his cool throughout executing his carefully thought out extortion plan with the assistance of his three (3) partners in crime, father Jim Molner and hot looking momma Joan are independently trying to figure out a plan to save not only themselves but heir precious and innocent little daughter Patty. As all this is going on you have lead FBI agent Frank Cole (played by Kenneth Tobey) trying to figure out who are these criminals and is Jim Molner actually involved in the crime or a victim himself?Although this film is almost 60 years old, I am anticipating that the film may be released in the blu ray format that it so richly deserves to be maintained as a film classic.Footnote: It was a tragedy that TV and film star Inger Stevens had such personal demons that she struggled with short term affairs with many of her co-stars (including James Mason in Cry Terror!) which culminated in her tragic death at the very young age of 35 when she was in the prime of her life. Her acting skills are second to none and she certainly helped carry this film "Cry Terror!" to a high caliber suspense/thriller with an all star cast of co-stars.I give the film an 8 out of 10 rating.

bkoganbing Although this is one improbable story a great cast moves Cry Terror along. In watching this I suggest you do not take a bathroom break as you'll miss some kind of thrilling moment.James Mason is a TV repairman with wife Inger Stevens and little daughter Terry Ann Ross and during the late war he was in underwater demolition with Rod Steiger. Steiger comes to Mason with a proposition that he build some kind of triggering device that they can sell to the Navy. Only Steiger puts it on some bombs and is making extortion threats against an airline run by Carlton Young.Now that he's got Mason implicated in his extortion scheme Steiger takes Mason and family hostage and he has Stevens go to collect the payoff. She gives as much information as she can to FBI agent Kenneth Tobey and without following her, the FBI races against time to catch Steiger and his gang before they do some grievous harm to the airlines and Mason's family.Mason and Steiger are a great pair of leads and a contrasting study in acting styles just like Steiger and Humphrey Bogart were in The Harder They Fall. Stevens gives one of her best performances on the big screen as the frightened wife.Steiger's accomplices are quite a study in low lives. Jack Klugman as a punk, Neville Brand as drug addicted sex criminal, and psycho nymphomaniac Angie Dickinson are some real criminal specimens. They give good competition to the leads.It's an improbable story, but the tension never lets up the second that Steiger takes the hostages. Those last three minutes or so will stay with you forever as they did with me when I first saw Cry Terror several decades ago.

herbqedi The airline is getting bomb threats. Chet Huntley reports. Mastermind Rod Steiger has an extortion scheme to collect half a million abetted by Klugman Dickinsom, and Brand. Steiger bamboozled Mason into building his bombs, then kidnaps his family to execute the plot. Interestingly, Stevens is overwrought (purposefully directed so)while nearly everyone else underplays it very effectively - UNTIL things start unwinding. Then Brand's psycho begins to freak out, Steiger's mastermind blows his cool, and Mason loses it - all very realistically done in semi-documentary fashion. I do not see the "routine" aspects others cite. These characters are quite different from the ordinary - especially Dickinson's matter-of-fact criminal who has no compunction about killing if necessary and has ice water running through her veins - a great performance. It makes fabulous use of its New York locations on a low budget. Stevens' race to make the ransom delivery on time despite being diverted by traffic miles in the wrong direction is a tour-d-force like I have seldom seen. The wrap-up is a bit melodramatic considering the tension that came before it - but only then did I breathe normally again. If you are from New York or interested in New York in the 50's, this is an edge-of-your seat treat.