Experiment in Terror

With a director so well-known for lighter fare like Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), The Pink Panther (1963), and Victor/Victoria (1982), it’s easy to forget that one of Blake Edwards’s earliest films was a noir thriller about a heavy-breathing serial killer. Opening with a spine-tingling sequence in which Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick) is attacked in her garage by a faceless stranger who threatens to kill her (and guesses her measurements by hand) unless she delivers him a pile of money, Experiment in Terror doesn’t follow a simple psycho-stalking-a-woman formula: its plot takes a number of detours (another murder, a disabled boy) that take some time to connect back to the main story in which FBI agent John Ripley (Glenn Ford) is assigned to track down the elusive stalker. Expected to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works to pay the man off, Kelly is warned not to notify the police and that she will be watched non-stop, so her dealings with the FBI are conducted as covertly as possible. Eventually, Kelly’s underage sister Toby (Stefanie Powers) is stalked at high school, kidnapped, and forced to strip (along with Cape Fear and Lolita, 1962 seems to have been a big year for child sexual obsession). While some may find the film 20 or 30 minutes too long, Edwards and crew keep the action moving at an effective rhythm, and Henry Mancini’s score provides dramatic accompaniment, like the flashing chords of a harp that highlight shocks, most notably when we suddenly discover that one of the figures in a giant room full of mannequins is alive.