Whitech
It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Freeman
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
blanche-2
I just saw a horrible print of Paramount's "Treasure of Fear" or "Scared Stiff" from 1945 starring Jack Haley, Barton Maclane, Ann Savage, and Veta Ann Borg.This is a comedic murder mystery about a rotten reporter who normally covers chess, Larry (Jack Haley) who is supposed to go to Grape City and report on a beauty contest. Instead, he gets off at Grape Center and becomes involved in a murder -- since the person murdered was the man sitting next to him on the bus. Of course he's a suspect. He and some other bus passengers are staying at a tavern run by twin brothers who haven't spoken to one another for ten years. The two women who are there - one whom he knows from an antique store in his town - are there for a valuable chess set kept at the hotel by the twins. One has the white set and the other the black. Barton MacLane is an escaped convict the police are searching for. Like someone else whose review I read here, I couldn't believe Ann Savage's performance as a sweet, dulcet voiced, helpful woman. I mean she spit nails in Detour. WHAT an actress, and what a shame she retired early to move away with her husband. She came back much later, after his death, to receive raves all over again.And of course what's a B movie without Veda Ann Borg. She does her usual good job as an aggressive, man-hungry woman.As for Jack Haley, it seems no one liked him in this movie. I thought he was funny and played the dizzy character well. I wasn't annoyed by him at all.Not a great film, but if you're a fan of Ann Savage and haven't seen this incarnation of her, see this. A wonderful talent.
gridoon2018
Laughs....chills....howls....thrills! Or at least that's what the tagline promises. But you won't find too many of any of the above in "Scared Stiff". The setup is not unpromising (a murder in a bus as it's passing through a tunnel), but when the action settles down in a tavern / inn, the film becomes static: it is always a bad sign when an one-hour running time feels more like three. It's much more of a comedy than a mystery, but there are only two moderately funny sequences: one with a car that keeps honking when Haley approaches it, and one with several people coming in Haley's room and then hiding as other people, who must not see them there, keep coming. The DVD print of the Alpha version is in pretty poor shape, but I suppose we should be thankful that some of these obscure B-movies are available at all. ** out of 4.
loradean192
Like all Jack Haley roles, he raises what would have otherwise been a very boring plot to an excellent screwball farce complete with prat falls and fast-paced action. Veda Borg is the only other cast member to come close to keeping up with Haley, although a few quirky characters do make appearances (including one rather annoying child). If they had utilized them more to play off Jack Haley's comedy, this would be a 10 star movie. The plot is still generally a weak one, but the star more than makes up for it. Overall, a good rainy Sunday afternoon movie if there ever was one. If you liked this movie, watch Haley's "One Body Too Many", also an excellent screwball comedy with spooky overtones.
Cristi_Ciopron
A crime comedy about a chess-deck and chessmen, rather modest as script and performance, TREASURE OF FEAR, with Jack Haley and Ann Savage, directed by Frank McDonald, has too many small ideas to assemble them into a story. A journalist's trip, a romance on the road, the quest for Marco Pollo's chess-deck and the hunt for a murderer are mixed in a story with mysterious, intriguing characters, in an unsatisfying and approximative way. The treatment is light and amusing, but also banal and clumsy. And it ain't too intelligent, either. The performances seem trite, but then the roles were badly written to begin with. A funny, more or less dysfunctional journalist is sent to write an article; he takes the GREYHOUND, stumbles into a murder case and is also co-opted into hiding an old chess-deck. He meets various inscrutable characters—oldsters, a couple of broads, an annoying kid. Too bad a possibly funny subject isn't well handled. The script is weak. So, perhaps this ain't the definitive Marco Pollo chess-deck comedy. It lacks that lively charm which proves that a mind contributed. For ambitious screenwriters, that's a challenge—to write the definitive Marco Pollo's chess-deck comedy.
