Visiting Film Noir: Storm Fear

1955 Film Noir
From United Artists
Directed by Cornel Wilde

Starring
Cornel Wilde
Jean Wallace
Dan Duryea
Lee Grant
David Stollery
Dennis Weaver
Steven Hill

I don't think Hollywood afforded Cornel Wilde the chance to show his acting chops in too many movies.  They were more interested in showing off his flamboyance with a sword in his hand, those skin-tight pants and frequent excuses to take off his shirt and flash his muscles.  This is not entirely a bad thing.

By the mid-50's, with all of his pleading for better parts falling on deaf ears, he decided to do something about it.  He formed his own production company, Theodora, and began producing and directing his own films.  If there's a problem here it would be that a chunk of these films were not a whole lot better than all his previous work.

All in all, he directed eight films and his then-wife Jean Wallace was the leading lady in most of them.  For my money, the best of the batch is this one, the first, Storm Fear.  It is a damned good drama that has always reminded me of the Bogie-Bacall-starrer, Key Largo (1948). 

Although I consider it a noir, it feels more like a hybrid noir to me.  There are no wet, darkened city streets, no cops, none of the noir shadows and lighting.  It even opens more like a western and more or less closes as one.  But Elmer Bernstein' score wraps us up completely in noir.  The two female characters come from noir and the fact that nearly all characters make choices that are far outside what most of us might make lends itself to noir.  And integral to the narrative is the constant sense of doom that is not only noir but simply compelling no matter the genre.

The black and white movie opens at a remote cabin in the Adirondacks which are blanketed with snow.  Dan Duryea is not healthy... he stays indoors with his tuberculin-like cough and constantly tightens the scarf he wears around his neck as if to keep out any hint of cold.  He spends every moment of every day holed up in a bedroom attempting to write the great American novel but coming to terms with the fact that he is a failed writer.  He's actually more of a failed human being.  He is unkind to his sad wife, Wallace, and his 11-year old bright son, David Stollery and shuts them both out.

Breaking into this unhappiness are three bank robbers.  Wilde heads the trio and is Duryea's hated brother.  We soon learn that while their animosity goes way back, one particular thing has been festering for years.  Wallace and Wilde had been a prior romance and when it broke up, she married Duryea whom she never loved.  It also turns out that the wrong brother has been claiming Stollery as his son.

Wilde has been shot and needs to mend in a safe location.  He spends most of his time in an upstairs bedroom with his gun and the stolen loot.  We quickly learn that a cop was killed and the various radio reports keep everyone on edge.  Lee Grant plays the moll, bleached blonde, a little out of her league and not so hardened yet unless she's dealing with the third member, Steven Hill, a scary nut job, whom she clearly detests.

Wilde tries to keep Hill, who has physical run-ins with all members of the house, from going ballistic.  When Wallace slaps him for getting too familiar, we fear for her safety, then or perhaps later.  Hill may not be too bright (adding another layer of scary) and he doesn't forget perceived injustices (add one more).  We're pretty sure that he is going to be central to the finale.  He and Wilde's adversarial relationship comes out of the treatment to the others. Hill wants to cause them harm and Wilde clearly does not.

Tempers boil over when the snow-packed backwoods are deluged with a huge new storm and the decision by Wilde is that they will have to stay longer, until roads are cleared.  As Wallace tends to Wilde's wounds, it is obvious that they have some unfinished business.  Neither says they want to give it another try and she, in fact, says she hates him but we noticed that she checks herself over before the mirror.  There is a tension between the two of them, apart from all that is going on downstairs.

Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace

Central to all that happens, for different reasons, is Stollery.  He's bright, caring and inquisitive and not opposed to showing Hill an 11-year old temper.  It's chilling to hear Wilde warn Wallace to keep Stollery in check because Hill could kill the kid.  One of my favorite types of suspense stories is the child-in-peril.  If you're thinking oh, so that's why he's into this film, you'd be right.

Dennis Weaver has a few scenes as the farm handyman who is in love with Wallace and is close to Stollery as well.  He's tramping through the snow helping out some neighbors and is blithely unaware of the intruders and danger.  Wilde spots him walking back and instructs everyone but Wallace to hide and be quiet.  Hill keeps a revolver at Stollery's temple to be sure the rules are followed.

Weaver inquires about Duryea's and Stollery's whereabouts and when he is assured they're asleep, he pleads with Wallace to leave Duryea and start a life with him.  It is, of course, uncomfortable for Duryea as he listens and Stollery who is stunned and Hill who is about to bust in because Weaver's hanging around too long.  This scene involving the entire cast is done so well.

Radio reports alert all that cops are starting some house-to-house searches and Wilde decides they will leave at once.  Before they do, Duryea decides to do something heroic and go for help, so he bundles up and makes little ground when he dies.  Unfortunately the only way out is over a mountain.  Over Wallace's strenuous objections, Wilde decides the kid will have to show the way.  Wallace is tied up to a kitchen chair and off they go.

The mountain sequences are especially tense. I always find them exciting.  You probably would, too.  

Wilde does a fine job in all departments.  He lucked out with basically one set but to act in a film he's directing for the first time has gotta promote some strain.  It was his first time directing his wife and it didn't always go smoothly.  He was no stranger to noir and the role fit him well.  Of course, carried over from his earlier years there are the countless shirtless scenes.  One just recovers better from a leg wound when one's shirt is off.  

Women in noir are usually mysterious and so many look like life has knocked them around.  I have no doubt why Wilde thought his wife would be perfection itself.  Storm Fear was my first look at Jean Wallace and, wan and worn out though she may have been here, there was a fire in there, too, and when pushed against some of life's extremes, she could rally.  I was very much attracted to the actress's sadness and it was there in all her films.  It made me want to cradle her and assure her things would be alright.  

I can't believe I've never written about Dan Duryea or any of his many films.  He made some good ones, too, and also a lot of yummy B westerns.  He was almost always the villain.  How funny that he not only doesn't have Hill's psychopath role here but he is the most beaten down of all the characters.  I have wondered what made Wilde choose him and I am glad he did.

Storm Fear was just the second film for both Hill and Grant.  This was the first time, however, that I'd seen Hill's work and when I'm introduced to a new actor in a role like this, I tend to always see him that way.  That even included when he starred as the lead hero in the first season of TV's Mission Impossible (before Peter Graves took over).

Grant I had seen in The Detective Story but I was very young and all I remembered was being frightened of Kirk Douglas.  Some years went by before she worked in another movie because she got caught up in the horror that was the Hollywood witch hunt.  Wilde gave her a second shot by hiring her.  Nice guy.

David Stollery was on a break from filming the most famous work he would ever do, TV's Spin and Marty, which was part of The Mickey Mouse Club back in the day.  Stollery made very few films and eventually left the business.  He was quite the competent young actor.

David Stollery

Storm Fear was written by Horton Foote.  It was his theatrical movie screenplay adaptation.  He would go on to adapt others' work or adapt his own screenplays from his novels or write an original screenplay in films such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies and The Trip to Bountiful.  This film proves he had a wonderful ear for dialogue early on.

Wilde and Wallace had just completed a rather gifted noir, The Big Combo, one he did not direct but did produce, and perhaps they expected lightning to strike twice, particularly in the same year.  I don't know if that happened but I have held Storm Fear in high regard for years.  It didn't rock the world on its initial release but it has gathered much appreciation in the years since.


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